The Rubik's Cube
I’ve certainly been there…sitting in a waiting room eyeing up a Rubik’s cube; itching to pick it up in attempt to crack it till my stream of consciousness takes over, delivering an intimidating reminder that I will never solve it in the 5 minutes before being called for my appointment; or maybe never at all…
Naturally displeased having been left unanswered; unnerved and demoralized numerous times by a mere colourful plastic cube, I have a burning need to research Mr Erno Rubik.
· Hungarian sculptor and architecture professor Erno Rubik invented the Rubik’s cube in 1974 with the intention of designing a model that explained 3D geometry
· Originally called the "Magic Cube", the puzzle was licensed by Rubik to be sold by Ideal Toy Company in 1980
· 350 million cubes have sold worldwide as of January 2009, making it the world's top-selling puzzle
· The 3x3x3 original Rubik’s cube celebrated its 13th anniversary in 2010
· 3x3x3 cube has 21 pieces, 1 core, 8 corners, 12 edges and 54 stickers
· If every Rubik’s cube sold were stacked, it would reach the North Pole from the South Pole
· The height of the Rubik's craze was mid-1980s when one-fifth of the world's population had played the Cube
· Inspiration for the internal mechanism was driven from pebbles in the River Danube (Europe) whereby the edges had been smoothed away
· A dedicated art movement, ‘Rubikubism’ has been implemented (see art below)
· Knoxville, Tennessee, holds the biggest Cube in the world at 3m tall and over 500kg in weight
· Thibaut Jacquinot (France) was the first to complete the puzzle in 9.86 seconds in May 2007
· Current record holder is Feliks Zemdegs, whom completed the Cube in 5.66 seconds in June 2011 in Australia at the Melbourne Winter Open competition
Art movement 'Rubikism'
How it works:
· Classic Rubik's Cube: 6 faces covered by 9 stickers among 6 solid colours: orange, green, yellow, white, red and blue
· Pivot mechanism enables each face to turn independently, mixing the colours
· For the puzzle to be solved, each face must be a solid colour
· Computer optimal solvers of the Cube have had a solution of 20 moves or fewer (international team of Tomas Rokicki, Herbert Kociemba, Morley Davidson and Jogn Dethridge have proved this)
· Various theorists believe in ‘Laws of the Cube’ – what are ‘legal’ moves
Symmetry of the Cube - why positions look different but may be the same
Group Theory – subgroups of the Cube and their properties
Cycles – the permutation, setting certain pieces in a cycle
Parity – whether that permutation is even or odd
( See http://www.ryanheise.com/cube/theory.html )
There are hundreds of Rubik’s Cube forums and video tutorials on how to solve it; charging up to £6 to see the final few steps, including Daren Brown’s youtube shows. See below to enhance your inner competitive streak and strive to crack the code that has tantalized thousands of people of all ages since the 80s.
Notes:
http://www.rubikssolver.com/
http://www.speedsolving.com/
Daren Brown: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsQIoPyfQzM
Harvard Theory: http://www.math.harvard.edu/~jjchen/docs/Group%20Theory%20and%20the%20Rubik's%20Cube.pdf
