The Rubik's Cube was patented by Hungarian architecture professor Ernő Rubik in 1976, first sold in the UK in 1978, and internationally by 1980. There were some precursors like a 2x2x2 cube, but they never had the right magic. Rubik's cube took the world by storm, becoming a massive global phenomena, with an active scene today. As of 2024, about 500 million had been sold, making it the world's best selling toy.

Rubik's intention was not even to create a toy:

his actual purpose was solving the structural problem of allowing many small parts to move independently while still remaining part of a single, coherent mechanical system. ... He did not immediately realise that he had created a puzzle: this only became apparent after he scrambled his newly constructed Cube for the first time and then attempted to restore it... it took him about a month of trial and error to solve his own creation

3x3x3 and 13x13x13 cube:

There have been product tie-ins to everything from breakfast cereal (Chex!) to Barbie to McDonalds.

It spawned competitions such as blindfolded cubing and speedcubing. The speedcubing WR today is held by Xuanyi Geng of China. Here is a video of his 2.52s run. He can freely examine the cube, but the timer starts when he removes his hands from the pad.

If you're serious about your cubing, don't forget your cube lube!

I recently got a sub-15s PB the other week. Super proud of that 🤓

3 billion combinations

Uh. Bit more than that. 👇😅

The total number of possible combinations for a standard 3x3 Rubik's Cube is approximately 43 quintillion (43,252,003,274,489,856,000).

It was the 80’s. We DEFINITELY didn’t know what we were talking about.

sub-15s PB

That's pretty impressive!

I guess my PB must be around.. umm... a couple weeks maybe.

Edit -> And yeah their marketing 3B copy feels like if McDonalds proudly put up a sign proclaiming, "Over eleven people served!" It's not exactly wrong...

I took up cubing a few years ago, to make my brain work and now I have about ten varieties. They're fun and challenging to learn and great fidget toys while I'm working (desk job).

My PB for the 3x3x3 is 1 1/2 minutes though. No risk of me breaking any records.

1 1/2 minutes though. No risk of me breaking any records.

That's still an accomplishment! You can't get there by randomly picking the thing up and fooling with it. You have to practice and put in diligent effort. 1.5min is probably better than like 99.99% of anyone who has ever tried one, so thumbs-up-emoji from me.

$11.95 in 1980 would be $48.58 today. Yeesh.

Was hoping someone did the calculations, I figured that tag price would have been a lot back then. I hope they were way more durable and turnable than the ones I grew up with.

I mean it says over 3 billion so it’s still technically right

Well that looks easy as shit. They should try making one with more than two colors.

Ernő Rubik is a nice enough guy when you meet him IRL, but most people can't finish shaking his hand in under 20 minutes.

That's the best kind of right.

It was a lucky scramble for sure, just like everyone's personal best always is 😅 just like my sub-1s 2x2 PB as well that I got on a plane, lol. 4 turns was all it took. Person next to me stared at my hands afterwards, as did I 😆