Rubik's cube is not just fun to use but engaging as well. Before accessories like fidget spinners made it to our hands (without a purpose perhaps), most of us had a Rubik's cube. While some of us used it to stay focused and get thinking about things, others used it religiously to work on their motor skills, concentration and logical thinking skills. Regardless of the purpose it served, it is one of the best toys or gifts we ever received as kids.
However, Rubik's cube often passes off as just another toy in the hand of a kid. Not many of us know some really interesting and offbeat facts about Rubik's cube. To make things easier for you, we have compiled a list of some of the most captivating facts about Rubik's cube that you would be probably reading for the first time. So read on and use them as conversation starters or add in facts like Sheldon when the time is right!
1. Rubik's Cube was initially called as Magic Cube. It was only in the year 1980 that it was renamed to Rubik's Cube.
2. The first time the Magic Cube made its way into the market, it was the year 1974. This means this timeless piece of object is over 40 years old. Also, it was first in a toy shop in Budapest.
3. The individuals pieces that make up the Rubik's cube are called as cubelets or cubies. Each of the cubie comes with a very unique and cleverly developed mechanism that allows it to interlock and function seamlessly with other cubies.
4. Some facts claim that it was originally developed by Rubik with an intention to physically portray and explain 3-D geometry.
5. For this fact, probably we should all be mastering the numbering system because the total number of configurations possible for a Rubik's cube is 43,252,003,274,489,856,000.
6. The coloured pieces combined offer a configuration of over 43 quintillion. This means that if you had to rotate one move every second, you would be taking approximately 1400 trillion years going through all the possible configurations. For the science enthusiasts out there, you would still be working on the Rubik's cube configurations if you (hypothetically) started moving cubes at the time of the big bang.
7. When it was first introduced, people struggled to complete the puzzle. The fever caught up so severely that a 13-year-old kid had to come up with a guide in the 1980s. He published his strategies on his book titled You Can Do The Cube.
8. World records on solving the Rubik's cube are aplenty with tons of different variations. But the most bizarre one you would probably hear is the one that involved Dan Knights solving the cube while falling from an airplane. He had close to 45 seconds to solve the cube before his parachute opened. He did it in less than 35 seconds.
9. By the time you would have finished reading this sentence, Mats Valk would have solved the Rubik's cube.
10. The man who invented the cube had to struggle with it for a month before he could finally solve it.
Crazy right? One small piece of puzzle ending up scratching our egos and minds? Well, it's one of the greatest inventions of all time that has more distinct purposes than actually intended. If you still have not gotten hands on with a Rubik's cube, get one and challenge yourself today.