Rubik's Cube is 40 years old

Time is running very fast, and such a popular toy (and not just a toy!), Like the Rubik's Cube, has already turned 40 years old. This puzzle was created by Erne Rubik in 1974, and patented by him - in 1975.


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It should be noted that the original Cube was conceived not as a toy, but as a practical guide to geometry that would be used in educational institutions. In general, Rubik's Cube is brought (and brought) to educational institutions often, but not always used as an aid :)

Among other things - the Rubik's Cube became the object of serious research by mathematicians, and later - the object of close attention for programmers who honed their skills, creating algorithms for solving this problem, trying to find the minimum number of moves to solve.

At certain times, the Rubik's Cube became the most popular puzzle in the world, including both Western countries and the USSR. By the way, in the USSR, the rights to reproduce toys on an industrial scale were acquired for $ 3 million, which in those times was a very large sum.

In principle, the Rubik's Cube is still a very popular puzzle; entire sites about building a cube are dedicated to it, or individual articles on cubes of different formats (for example, here’s a solution to the position 5 * 5 * 5 ).

In addition, almost from the very appearance of this toy, a sport like speedcubing emerged. This is a puzzle for speed. The first serious competition was held in 1982, in Budapest. Then the winner was able to collect the cube in just 23 seconds. By the way, on Habré there is an interesting article about the assembly of the Cube .

Currently, the record for the speed assembly of the Cube belongs to the Dutchman Mats Valk, who managed to assemble the puzzle in just 5.55 seconds.

As for the robots, then on Habré also published an article about the record, which put the robot CubeStormer 3 , who collected the Cube in just 3,253 seconds.

Now, by the way, it is already known that any position of the Cube can be solved in 20 steps , no more.



For 40 years, the Rubik's Cube has been modified and transformed several times. There appeared cubes not only 3 * 3 * 3, but also 4 * 4 * 4 and even 7 * 7 * 7. The cube became a pyramid, a parallelepiped and much more.




This is no longer a Rubik's Cube, but something beyond description.

In general, even today, the Rubik's Cube is very much alive, this puzzle, of course, is far from such a long-lived as chess, but 40 years in our time is a whole era. So congratulations :)