Rubik's Cube..

...is widely considered to be the world's best-selling toy. Invented in 1974 by Erno Rubik, a Hungarian architecture professor and sculptor, the cube has six faces -- each face comprising 9 red, white blue, orange, green, or yellow colored squares. Each face turns independently utilizing a pivot, thus mixing up the colors. For the puzzle to be solved, each face must be a solid color.



Between 1980-82, over 100 million cubes were sold, and it is said that 1 in 3 households in the Western Hemisphere possess one. By 2009, over 350 million cubes had been sold worldwide, making it the world's best-selling toy ever. Its sales also were credited with helping the Hungarian economy out of Communism in the 1980s.

There are exactly 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 different positions (over forty-three quintillion) yet speed-cubers can solve it in as little as 11 seconds. Here's a video of one way to solve the puzzle, and here are written directions for solving it, including a PDF you can download.


Back in the '80s, I purchased a small pamphlet which provided a format for solving the puzzle. I memorized the steps, practiced a bunch, and was able to solve it in under 3 minutes and I thought that was really good! But "Speed cubers" try to set world records as fastest solver of the cube. The record I have seen posted is a mere 11 seconds! Of course, some speed-cubers have to put their own personal touch on the record, so they solve it while blindfolded, spending about 1 minute memorizing the unsolved cube that was handed to them, and in another minute, while blindfolded, they solve the cube. Still others solve it while underwater on one breath, solve it one-handed, solve it using chopsticks, solve it while drunk, solve it while free-falling from a plane, or solve it with their feet.

Here's what a cube looks like in pieces...



Other versions of the traditional 3X3 cube include 4X4, 5X5, and even a 20X20 cube. Here's how a cube is assembled.

But be warned if you try to emulate these Rubik's aficionados, because "Cubist thumb" and "Rubik's wrist" are documented medical conditions that can be incurred by addicts. And if your addiction gets too extreme, there of course is C.A. -- Cuber' Anonymous to assist you!

More info for those so inclined can be found in Wikipedia.