The Rubik’s Cube’s 40-year history is full of twists—quintillions and quintillions of them.

How Ernö Rubik Created the Rubik’s Cube By Noah Davis

At 29, Ernö Rubik was too old to be playing with blocks. But the Hungarian professor of architecture couldn’t help himself: He was fascinated with shapes and spent much of his free time building and perfecting 3-D models. In 1974, a particular project had him stumped. For months, he’d been working on a block made of smaller cubes that could move without causing the whole structure to fall apart. So far, each attempt had failed. The evidence was strewn all over the two-bedroom apartment he shared with his mother.

One spring day, a frustrated Rubik left the apartment and wandered the streets of Budapest. He followed a gentle bend in the Danube River, a path he had walked countless times before. At one point, he stopped to listen to the water lapping ashore and looked down at the polished round pebbles that lined the riverbank. Suddenly, his heart started racing.
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• 18 January 2015
• Freedom
• Rubik's Cube