Fifty years ago, sitting in his mother’s apartment in Budapest, Hungary, a young professor named Ernő Rubik finally completed a prototype for the “Magic Cube.”
Rubik, an interior design teacher, was fascinated by geometry but his attempts to create a robust 3D structure with movable, interchangeable layers were unsuccessful.
But after months of perseverance, Rubik was a huge success, though he didn’t do it with commercial potential in mind. “I just made it out of my own curiosity,” he told The Washington Post over a video call. “I think it’s kind of like being an artist: Once you’re happy with your work, you want to show it to people.”
“I hope you like it.”
Half a century later, and with 500 million units sold, it is estimated that one in seven people on the planet has attempted to solve the Rubik’s Cube, a puzzle with a staggering 43 quadrillion possible combinations.
The cultural phenomenon that is the Rubik’s Cube recently started counting how many magazine covers his cube has appeared on, but stopped when the number hit 1,500.
It’s not just magazines.
This riddle has been on our screens for a while now, having appeared six times on “The Simpsons” and playing the eponymous hero in Pixar’s “Wall-E” in 2008. Justin Bieber solved the riddle on “The Late Late Show” with James Corden in 2015..
On Saturday, July 13th, Ernő Rubik will turn 80 years old.
“Cube loves attention, and I don’t.”
The son of an aeronautical engineer who designed gliders, he had planned to go into academia, but the idea for the Magic Cube popped into his head and he refused to give up.
He initially used the Rubik’s Cube to teach geometry to his students, but it wasn’t until he patented his “three-dimensional logic toy” and had a local manufacturer produce 5,000 cubes that his invention became a success.
Just two years after its release in Hungary in 1979, the Magic Cube had sold 300,000 units and attracted the interest of toy manufacturers around the world. In 1980, the American company Ideal Toy purchased the rights to the Magic Cube, renaming it the “Rubik’s Cube,” and sales soared.
International toy fairs were key to its success, but none was larger than the one in New York.
Rubik’s first visit to New York was in the early 1980s, when he introduced the Cube at the New York Toy Fair.
This was Rubik’s first trip to the West, and a way to circumvent strict Soviet export controls in his home country: “I was a curious kid and knew about New York from movies and magazines, but it was very different for me, especially coming from the other side of the Iron Curtain.
“The smells, the sounds, the temperature, it was like nothing I’d ever experienced before.”
His visit to New York was also the first time he realized that success inevitably meant fame — and he didn’t like it.
“I didn’t understand,” he shrugs. “Why does everyone want to be famous? It’s not what I wanted, but I had to put up with it. It was exhausting.”
“Like I said before, Cube loves attention. And I don’t.”
3.13 seconds
It’s estimated that 500 million Rubik’s Cubes have now been sold, and that doesn’t include the counterfeits that have flooded the market.
Since the turn of the 21st century and the COVID-19 pandemic, the cube has found new life as speedcubers have turned their backs on digital devices. The World Cube Association (WCA), for example, regularly hosts competitions, such as the North American Championship 2024, to be held from July 18 to 21 at the Minneapolis Convention Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
The event brings together some of America’s best speedcubers, including two-time champion Max Park, who set a new world record in December 2021 by completing the cube in just 3.13 seconds — less than it takes to read this sentence.
By comparison, at the first Rubik’s Club World Championships held in Budapest in June 1982, American Ming Tai won in a time of 22.95 seconds.
Surprisingly, Rubik believes Park’s time can be improved even further.
“Look at the 100-meter sprint. The minute you think you can’t run any faster, you always find a way,” he says. “The same thing happens with the cube. It’s evolution.”
He also believes the Rubik’s Cube should be in the Olympics.
“They say the Olympics is a physical sport and Cube is certainly intellectual, but you have to remember it’s also physical because you need very quick hands.”
“That’s why the young people are so good.”
Arts and Sciences
Fifty years later, Rubik’s view of his “son,” as he calls him, changes daily.
Don’t ask Rubik about money.
He has not said how much revenue the wildly popular Cube has made since its inception, with a spokesman telling The Washington Post that “his primary interest has always been in arts and culture, and he rarely comments on business-related questions.”
“It’s art and science, and the relationship between art and humanity,” Rubik says.
“Every week I discover something new,” he added. “It’s so fascinating, but so hard to understand.”
Politicians can also learn something from the cube.
“Even seemingly unsolvable problems can be solved if you have the brainpower,” he says. “Just because something seems unsolvable doesn’t mean you should give up.”
The secret to the Rubik’s Cube’s enduring popularity, Rubik says, is that in an age of unprecedented technological innovation where screens dominate our attention, the cube creates “harmony between the heart, mind and hand.”
But the real secret is that a group of smart but shy and clumsy kids were able to solve the cube to the amazement of their classmates.
“They became superheroes,” he laughs.
