Rubik's Puzzles

Rubik's Cube is a mechanical puzzle invented in 1974 by Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture Ernő Rubik. more...

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Originally called the \"Magic Cube\" by its inventor, this puzzle was renamed \"Rubik's Cube\" by Ideal Toys in 1980 and also won the 1980 German Game of the Year (Spiel des Jahres) special award for Best Puzzle. It is said to be the world's best-selling toy, with over 300,000,000 Rubik's Cubes and imitations sold worldwide.

In a typical Cube, each face is covered by nine stickers of one of six solid colours. When the puzzle is solved, each face of the Cube is a solid colour. The Cube celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary in 2005, when a special edition Cube in a presentation box was released, featuring a sticker in the centre of the reflective face (which replaced the white face) with a \"Rubik's Cube 1980-2005\" logo.

The puzzle comes in four widely available versions: the 2×2×2 (Pocket Cube, also Mini Cube or Ice Cube), the 3×3×3 standard cube, the 4×4×4 (Rubik's Revenge), and the 5×5×5 (Professor's Cube). Even larger sizes have been built and are to be launched in September of 2008.

Conception and development

In March 1970, Larry Nichols invented a 2×2×2 \"Puzzle with Pieces Rotatable in Groups\" and filed a Canadian patent application for it. Nichols's cube was held together with magnets. Nichols was granted U.S. Patent 3,655,201  on April 11, 1972, two years before Rubik invented his improved cube.

On April 9, 1970, Frank Fox applied to patent his \"Spherical 3×3×3\". He received his UK patent (1344259) on January 16, 1974.

Rubik invented his \"Magic Cube\" in 1974 and obtained Hungarian patent HU170062 for the Magic Cube in 1975 but did not take out international patents. The first test batches of the product were produced in late 1977 and released to Budapest toy shops. Magic Cube was held together with interlocking plastic pieces that were less expensive to produce than the magnets in Nichols's design. In September 1979, a deal was signed with Ideal Toys to bring the Magic Cube to the Western world, and the puzzle made its debut at toy fairs in January and February 1980.

After its international debut, the progress of the Cube towards the toy shop shelves of the West was briefly halted so that it could be manufactured to Western safety and packaging specifications. A lighter Cube was produced, and Ideal Toys decided to rename it. \"The Gordian Knot\" and \"Inca Gold\" were considered, but the company finally decided on \"Rubik's Cube\", and the first batch was exported from Hungary in May 1980. Taking advantage of an initial shortage of Cubes, many cheap imitations appeared.

Read more at Wikipedia.org