50 Fun Facts About Rubik's Cube

Which Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture invented the cube?

He was a Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture, and it took him about a month to solve his own creation.

In which year did Ernő Rubik invent the cube?

The first test batches reached Budapest toy shops in late 1977 and the cube went international in 1980.

Before Ideal renamed the puzzle after its inventor, what was it originally called?

In Hungarian it was the bűvös kocka; Ideal renamed it after its inventor in 1980.

Which American company launched the cube worldwide in 1980?

Ideal wanted a distinctive, trademarkable name, which is how the Magic Cube became the Rubik's Cube.

Which of these names was seriously considered for the cube before 'Rubik's Cube' was chosen?

'Inca Gold' was the other finalist; the company decided to tie the product to its inventor instead.

Roughly how many Rubik's Cubes had been sold worldwide as of January 2024?

That makes it the world's best-selling puzzle game and best-selling toy.

In which year was the Rubik's Cube inducted into the US National Toy Hall of Fame?

The same year, a 40th-anniversary exhibit opened at the Liberty Science Center in New Jersey featuring a $2.5 million diamond cube.

On a standard modern cube, which colour is opposite white?

The colour arrangement was standardised in 1988; on early cubes it varied from cube to cube.

How many stickers were on each face of the original Rubik's Cube?

Six faces of nine make 54 stickers in six colours: white, red, blue, orange, green and yellow.

Since 2003, which organisation has run official speedcubing competitions and recognised records?

It grew out of the 2003 World Championship in Toronto, the first speedcubing tournament since 1982.

Larry Nichols patented a 2x2x2 cube puzzle in 1972, before Rubik. How were its pieces held together?

Nichols's employer sued Ideal, and in 1986 a court found Rubik's 2×2×2 Pocket Cube infringed the patent but the 3×3×3 did not.

At which German event did businessman Tibor Laczi first show the cube outside Hungary, in 1979?

Seven Towns founder Tom Kremer spotted it there and brokered the worldwide deal with Ideal Toys.

Roughly how many Rubik's Cubes are estimated to have been sold during the 1980–1983 craze?

By October 1982 The New York Times was reporting that 'the craze has died'.

The best-selling book in the US in 1981 was a guide to solving the cube. Who wrote it?

The Simple Solution to Rubik's Cube sold over 6 million copies; at one point three of the US top ten books were cube guides.

How old was Patrick Bossert when he wrote the best-seller You Can Do the Cube in 1981?

His book used a graphical notation designed so that novices could follow it.

Which network aired the 1983 Saturday-morning cartoon Rubik, the Amazing Cube?

The cube hero, voiced by Ron Palillo, could fly and only spoke gibberish when scrambled.

Where was the first Rubik's Cube World Championship held, in June 1982?

It was the only official competition until the championship was revived in Toronto in 2003.

Who won the 1982 World Championship with a winning time of 22.95s?

He was a Vietnamese student from Los Angeles; today's world record single is under three seconds.

In which city was the 2003 World Championship held, reviving competitive cubing after 21 years?

Only 83 people took part, but the event led to the founding of the World Cube Association the next year.

Which company agreed in October 2020 to buy the Rubik's Cube brand?

The Canadian toymaker announced the deal on 27 October 2020.

In which year did Rubik's US patent on the cube expire, opening the door to Chinese speed cubes?

Many Chinese-made cubes are engineered for speed and are now preferred by competitive cubers.

How long is each side of a standard Rubik's Cube?

That is about two and a quarter inches.

How many small movable 'cubies' make up the outside of a standard 3×3×3 cube?

There is no cubie in the middle: the six centre squares are fixed to a core mechanism of three intersecting axes.

How many corner pieces does a 3×3×3 cube have?

Each corner shows three colours; the twelve edges show two and the six centres show one.

Approximately how many possible arrangements does a 3×3×3 cube have?

Early adverts claimed 'over three billion combinations'; the true figure is 43,252,003,274,489,856,000.

If you had one cube for every possible arrangement, how many times could you cover the Earth's surface?

Alternatively, the cubes would stack into a tower 261 light-years high.

If a cube is reassembled randomly, what fraction of results can actually be solved by turning?

No sequence of moves can swap a single pair of pieces or twist a lone corner, so the pieces fall into 12 separate 'orbits'.

What is 'God's number', the maximum moves needed to solve any cube position?

A team using Google's computers proved it in July 2010; millions of positions genuinely need all 20.

In cubing jargon, what is a memorised sequence of moves with a known effect called?

The word is borrowed from mathematics; many are designed to change one small part of the cube without disturbing the rest.

The standard move notation using letters like F, R, U and L was developed by whom?

In his notation a prime symbol means an anticlockwise turn and a 2 means a half turn.

In cube notation, what does a prime symbol after a letter (such as R') indicate?

A letter followed by 2 means a 180-degree turn, and x, y and z rotate the entire cube.

The popular speedcubing method CFOP is named after its four stages: Cross, F2L, OLL and what?

PLL stands for permuting the last layer; the full method has 120 algorithms.

Who developed the CFOP speedcubing method?

It is also known simply as the Fridrich method; Petrus and Roux each developed rival block-building methods.

Since 2005 the WCA has required official solves to be timed on which device?

Competition rankings use a trimmed average of five solves, dropping the fastest and slowest.

In the competitive blindfolded event, what does a competitor's recorded time cover?

Competitors study the scramble first, then put on the blindfold before turning a single face.

In the Fewest Moves Challenge, how long do competitors have to write down their solution?

The world record is a solution of just 16 moves.

How fast did the robot Rubik's Contraption solve a cube in a widely shared video?

Ben Katz and Jared Di Carlo built it around a Nucleo board running the min2phase algorithm.

What is the world record for the fewest moves used to solve a cube in competition?

Four people share it, including Sebastiano Tronto of Italy, who set it in 2019.

The 4×4×4 version of the cube is sold under what name?

It was invented by Péter Sebestény and released in 1981; the 5×5×5 is the Professor's Cube.

Up to what size of cube does the WCA sanction speedsolving competitions?

Larger cubes become ungainly, prone to 'popping', and solve times grow quadratically with each extra layer.

The tetrahedron-shaped twisty puzzle inspired by the cube is called what?

The Megaminx is a dodecahedron and the Dogic an icosahedron.

As of 2021, what was the largest mass-produced cube?

MoYu began making it in 2021; it cost between $1,100 and $1,600.

Which street artist staged a 2005 Los Angeles show called 'Rubik Cubism' using cubes as pixels?

The artist had previously built giant Space Invaders out of cubes.

Pete Fecteau's 2010 mosaic 'Dream Big', made of 4,242 cubes, is a tribute to whom?

Fecteau also wrote guides teaching schoolchildren to build cube mosaics from templates.

In 2016 the EU's top court ruled the cube could not be trademarked on the basis of what?

Rubik's Brand had fought a ten-year battle; the ruling still left it the trademarks on the words 'Rubik' and 'Rubik's'.

In which city was Ernő Rubik born in 1944?

He has lived his whole life in Hungary and credits his father, a glider engineer, as his inspiration.

What did Ernő Rubik's father design for a living?

His mother, Magdolna Szántó, was a poet.

Which of these puzzle toys was invented by the same man who created the cube?

He also created Rubik's Magic, a folding puzzle developed at the design studio he opened in 1984.

What magazine put a Rubik's Cube on its cover in March 1981?

The same month, a Guinness-organised speedcubing championship was held in Munich, won with a time of 38 seconds.

What honour did the cube receive at Germany's Game of the Year in 1980?

It also picked up best-toy awards in the UK, France and the US that year.