29/07/2024

Rubik's Cube turns 50 this month.

Developed by Hungarian architect Ernö Rubik in 1974, the Rubik's Cube celebrated its 50th anniversary this July, attracting mathematicians and enthusiasts worldwide. The date has received significant media attention in various countries.

According to a report in the magazine Pequenas Empresas & Grandes Negócios (Small Businesses & Big Deals) , since its creation, the toy has reached the mark of 500 million units sold and has earned a permanent place in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, USA.

The idea for creating the Cube appeared unpretentiously while Rubik was preparing a descriptive geometry lesson for the architecture and graphic design course he taught. It was also through a playful exploration of the five Platonic solids – regular convex polyhedra – that the Rubik's Cube began to take shape, as reported in the Folha de S.Paulo newspaper.

This entire process took many months to reach the final result and was documented in the architect's memoir, "Cube: Enigma of Us All," published in 2020. "For a long time, I didn't realize I was creating a puzzle," the inventor highlighted in the book. With the book completed, the cubes were used as prototypes for Rubik's dynamic geometry classes, and later found their way into the living rooms of people all over the world.

The Rubik's Cube is composed of 20 mini cubes, forming eight corners and 12 edges centered between them, designed so that the player can close each of the 6 sides of the cube in such a way that all nine faces of the small cubes are the same color. This structure is supported by six central pieces connected to the core, which contains a three-dimensional cross. Around it, the tabs of the edge and corner cubes interlock like a contraption, allowing the structure to rotate.

Mathematically, this relates to the study of symmetry. In short, the idea is that the geometric object, even when undergoing a series of transformations, does not have its structure altered.

For Cube enthusiasts today, the goal is not only to complete the challenge, but also to do so as quickly and innovatively as possible. One of the first virtual movements dedicated to the subject was CubeLovers, back in 1980.

Today, YouTube has come to be considered the "modern classroom" for learning how to solve the Rubik's Cube, due to the enormous number of tutorials on the subject. Furthermore, since the first Rubik's Cube championship, which took place in Budapest in 1982, a series of others have been launched in various cities around the world.

"The cube has lived for so long and, in my opinion, still seems alive and full of energy for future generations, so it's an interesting object. All I wanted to do was assemble something and share it with people," Ernö Rubik stated in an interview with the website Wallpaper.