Rubik’s Cube at 50

Ernö Rubik, a Hungarian who studied architecture and went on to become a professor of descriptive geometry, is credited with having created the cube. His classes taught students how to visualise three-dimensional shapes in two-dimensional images.

One day in the spring of 1974, while researching Platonic solids, Rubik saw the possibility of putting together eight smaller cubes to form a big cube, such that the smaller ones would stick together as they moved around while exchanging their places. In his first wooden version of the cube, he drilled a hole in the corners of the small cubes to link them together.  After much trial and error, Rubik cracked the design in time for his 30th birthday in July 1974. From a monochromatic wooden design, Rubik’s cube now had its faces painted in blue, red, green, yellow, orange and white. After playing with it intermittently, he went on to “solve” the cube for the first time months later.

Originally called the “Magic Cube”, a “three-dimensional logical toy”, it made its debut in Hungary’s toy shops in 1977 and by 1979, 300,000 cubes had been sold country-wide. However, the Cube was still to be internationally recognised — Hungary remained under communist rule and, beyond tourists seeking out souvenirs, the Cube seldom found its way abroad. Finally, in 1980, Rubik secured a contract with Ideal Toy, an American company, to sell a million cubes overseas.

The Cube was re-named ‘Rubik’s Cube’. Rubik attended a toy fair in New York to demonstrate how to solve the Cube. His invention would captivate the imagination of toy fairs around the world. The first-ever Rubik’s Cube World Championship took place in Budapest, with the prize going to Minh Thai of the US, who solved it in 22.95 seconds.

The Rubik’s Cube craze seemed to fizzle out just as quickly as it had caught on — but interest was rekindled in the 1990s, when a new generation of ‘speed-cubers’ and enthusiasts took to the Cube, setting all manner of records for solving it — blindfolded, underwater, while skydiving.

For its 50th anniversary, Spin Master, which currently owns the brand,  launched a special edition of the cube with a retro design featuring slower turning, a gold side, classic boxy edges and a Special Anniversary logo in an old-timey plastic display case. Today, the Rubik’s cube is believed to have been played by one in seven people in the world. The world record for the fastest solved cube belongs to Max Park, who solved it in 3.13 seconds in 2023.