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Happy 40th birthday Rubik’s Cube! Here’s 5 quick facts you may not know

Today’s Google Doodle celebrates 40 years since the invention of one of the world’s most popular toys, the Rubik’s Cube. The Doodle is an interactive game where you have to solve the Cube using the arrow keys and earn yourself a certificate.

It may take time to solve it, but luckily there’s a lot of advice and how-to guides on the internet on how to do so, including this one from You Can Do The Cube. In the meantime, here are five quick facts you may not know about the Rubik’s Cube:

1. The Rubik’s Cube was invented by Hungarian professor, Ernő Rubik. First called the Magic cube, in Hungary in 1974, but was then renamed in 1980 for its global release. Below is a photo of the original Rubik’s Cube:

firstcube

2. Speed Cubing challenges have grown over the years, with contests held all over the world to see who can solve the Rubik’s Cube in the shortest time. The first Rubik’s Cube World Championship was held in 1982 in Budapest, Hungary. Back then, 16-year-old Minh Thai from the US won the competition with a relatively slow (compared to recent times) solve of 22.95 seconds.

Watch below as Thai solves the Cube at the championship:

3. In the movie The Pursuit of Happiness, there’s a scene where the main character played by US actor Will Smith solves the Rubik’s Cube in 30 seconds while inside a taxi with his potential boss in a bid to impress him. Many thought a double was brought in to solve the Cube or that it was fake, but Smith can actually solve the Cube that quickly in real life:

4. The most expensive Rubik’s Cube is called the Masterpiece Cube. It was made by Fred Cueller from Diamond Cutters International to celebrate the 15th anniversary of Rubik’s Cube. It’s made of 18-carat solid gold, encrusted with 22.5 carat amethyst, 34 carat rubies and 34 carat green emerald and is worth more than R15.7 million.

5. In celebration of Black History Month this February, and in honour of late former SA president Nelson Mandela, students at the Rice University in the US, created a mosaic portrait of Mandela made up of 600 Rubik’s Cubes, which now hangs in the Rice University BioScience Research Collaborative building.

622x350[Source- Rubik’s. Images-Google, Rubik’s, Chron]

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