Sitting on the patio of his home in the hills of Budapest, Rubik, now 76, fiddled with a cube as he recalled its "discovery" and accidental success. After creating the cube, he explained, he was faced with a second challenge: how to solve it. At the time, he had no idea if his cube could even be put back into place, let alone how fast — and it took him a full month to solve his own puzzle.
It was fiendishly difficult "to find your way back, or to find your target — just to solve it as a combinatorical problem,'' he said. His resume includes stints as a professor, architect, designer, editor and, now, writer. Rubik wasn't the most charismatic salesperson - he was a shy professor with a limited command of English. But Ideal needed him there for one very specific reason. He was the only one who could actually solve the Rubik's Cube live in front of the toy buyers. Within just three years, million Rubik's Cubes were sold - with the help of this commercial:.
The winner solved the puzzle in just Today, nearly 50 years after its invention, Rubik's Cube is still a huge seller. Over million have been sold - making it the best-selling toy in history. And the pandemic has boosted sales. The current speed record for solving Rubik's Cube is just 3. Which is mind-boggling - considering there are 43 quintillion possible combinations - but only one successful one.
It is a unique and remarkable brand. Even in this computer-driven, digital age, Rubik's Cube is projected to sell 20 million units this year alone. And it was at that moment that I came face to face with the Big Challenge: What is the way home? Randomly twisting it, he realized, would take longer than he had on Earth. It was later calculated that 43 quintillion possible positions of the Cube exist; the odds of chancing upon the correct one are next to nothing.
It took a month of twisting and re-twisting in his room before he found the solution. Exhilarated, he left the room and showed his mother.
By providing your email, you agree to the Quartz Privacy Policy. The victor was Minh Thai , an American teenager, who solved the cube in It still remained on the shelves and still sold incredibly well, but the hype that originated back in its starting years had pretty much died off.
The cube did make occasional appearances in the news, however, such as the Masterpiece Cube that was created in by Diamond Cutters Int. The Fridrich method also known as CFOP , an acronym for the stages of the puzzle is regarded today as the best speedcubing method, and the world record single and average times have been held by Fridrich solvers for many years, despite Fridrich herself estimating that the method would not be efficient for consistent times under 13 seconds.
This was the first official organisation that would be responsible for the running of official speedcubing competitions and monitoring of national and international achievements. The WCA has helped grow speedcubing and has taken the hobby to many new countries.
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