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Rubik's Cube: 40 Years Old and Never Meant To Be a Toy

Posted by samzenpus on from the don't-peel-the-stickers dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The greatest geek toy ever invented turns 40 today and to celebrate there's an interactive Google Doodle, and the Telegraph has a short history of the toy. 'There are only a handful of toys that last more than a generation. But the Rubik's cube, which celebrates its 40th birthday, now joins the likes of Barbie, Play-Doh, Lego and the Slinky, as one of the great survivors in the toy cupboard. What makes its success all the remarkable is that it did not start out as a toy. The Rubik's cube was invented in 1974 by Erno Rubik, a Hungarian architect, who wanted a working model to help explain three-dimensional geometry.'"

15 of 105 comments (clear)

  1. Hajrá Magyarország! by stoolpigeon · · Score: 3, Funny

    Hajrá Magyarok!

    --
    It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
    1. Re:Hajrá Magyarország! by StripedCow · · Score: 4, Funny

      I take it that means "first post"?

      --
      If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
    2. Re:Hajrá Magyarország! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      No, it means in English "Go Hungarians!".

    3. Re:Hajrá Magyarország! by shikaisi · · Score: 4, Funny

      No, it means "My hovercraft is full of eels"

      --
      No left turn unstoned.
  2. 40 years and I still can't solve it by jfdavis668 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Never did learn how to solve it.

    1. Re:40 years and I still can't solve it by LocutusOfBorg1 · · Score: 3, Informative

      This is easy: remove all the coloured stickers from each cube face, and you get a cube with each face having a uniform colour.

      I did exactly this when I received my first cube. Still not able to solve it :)

    2. Re:40 years and I still can't solve it by umafuckit · · Score: 4, Informative

      Then learn! RubiksPlace has one of the better tutorials on the net. Good cubes can be purchased for under $15. Buy one by Dayan, or a similar company. The official Rubik's ones mostly suck. Follow the instructions on the site and you'll have a solve within half an hour. Then you can proceed onto learning and understanding the process. It's rather fun. I've just started and my goal for this year to get a sub one minute solve. I'm busy, so if I can nail that I'll be very happy.

      --
      soylentnews.org
    3. Re:40 years and I still can't solve it by OakDragon · · Score: 3, Funny
      As a person who was jealous of those that actually could solve it, this was my favorite joke on them:
      1. Take one of their solved cubes.
      2. Break it apart
      3. Put it back, EXCEPT rotating one edge piece so that the colors would not align
      4. Mix it up good
      5. ???
      6. Profit!

      I'm not sure, but I imagined this would make it unsolvable.

      --
      Dark Reflection
    4. Re:40 years and I still can't solve it by LostOne · · Score: 4, Informative

      If one edge piece is flipped as described, the cube does, in fact, become unsolvable. It is not possible to flip a single edge piece without affecting at least one other piece on the cube.

      --

      If it works in theory, try something else in practice.
  3. Hmm by Richy_T · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The Rubik's cube was invented in 1974 by Erno Rubik, a Hungarian architect, who wanted a working model to help explain three-dimensional geometry.

    I've heard this before but it makes no sense to me that the cube would in any way help to explain three dimensional geometry (any more than would a static cube of wood). Can anyone elucidate on this?

    Not that I'm complaining. Love to play with one myself.

    1. Re:Hmm by tkuCheck · · Score: 5, Informative

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...: "Although it is widely reported that the Cube was built as a teaching tool to help his students understand 3D objects, his actual purpose was solving the structural problem of moving the parts independently without the entire mechanism falling apart. He did not realize that he had created a puzzle until the first time he scrambled his new Cube and then tried to restore it."

  4. toys that last more than a generation. by rossdee · · Score: 5, Insightful

    'There are only a handful of toys that last more than a generation.

    Oh, come on, there are many 'toys' that have been around for more than a century
    Like the 'stick with the horses head handle, the bicycle and tricycle, the spinning top, the soccer ball, the oval football, the bucket and spade (sandcastles) the swimming pool, the Y shaped catapult, dolls (and toy soldiers for boys) chalk, crayons and other drawing stuff, the seesaw (aka teeter tottor) slides, playing cards (the classical 4 suits kind) dice (6 sided, not the crappy company that owns slashdot, the skipping rope, the kaleidoscope, the boomerang, model trains, cars and boats, and the box that the toys came in

  5. Re:4 d version? by umafuckit · · Score: 3, Informative

    This is the closest you're likely to get to a 4-D Rubik's cube.

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    soylentnews.org
  6. Bad link in summary by mgemmons · · Score: 4, Informative

    You would expect that a link named "an interactive google doodle" would link to, you know, that and not an engadget article which has a decidedly non-interactive screenshot of said doodle . But hey, this is slashdot. Go here instead: http://www.google.com/doodles/

  7. Re: toys that last more than a generation. by MozeeToby · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Child culture doesn't change much over the years. Look at your list and think about how many of them have been in existence for over 100 years or even 500. Many of them can be traced back to the dark ages or even further. Managing to insert your toy into part of child culture is an accomplishment worth noting; to me it remains to be seen if Rubik's cube has actually managed to do so (despite being a fan, I suspect the answer is no).