The Rubik’s cube was invented in 1974 by Ernő Rubik. He was working as a professor in Budapest when he designed the cube to see if it was possible to turn something like it without the cube falling apart. It took him a month to solve it, and it was made of wood. He applied for a patent for the “Spatial Logic Toy” in 1975 and it was granted in 1977. The Rubik’s Cube started being manufactured that same year and became popular in Hungary in the late 70s. It was originally called the Magic Cube, but Ideal Toy Company, which bought the rights to the cube in 1980, changed its name to the Rubik’s Cube. The person who first thought of the sale, Tom Kremer, first saw it at the 1979 Nuremberg Toy Fair, where it was on display. The cube was a worldwide phenomenon in the 1980s, with around 200 million of them being sold between 1980 and 1983. It landed on the cover of Scientific American in 1981, and was even featured in an animated series on ABC called “Rubik, the Amazing Cube.” The first World Rubik’s Cube Championship took place on June 5, 1982, in Budapest, Hungary. It was won by Minh Thai, a 16-year old from Los Angeles who immigrated to the US from Vietnam in 1980. His best solve was 22.95 seconds, a world record that would stand for 22 years. Unfortunately, the Rubik’s Cube hype was short-lived. In 1982, the New York Times declared the Rubik’s Cube’s death, calling it a “fad.” By 1983, Rubik’s Cube sales collapsed, and its manufacturer went bankrupt. It looked like the Rubik’s Cube craze was over.
Ernő Rubik, the inventor of the Rubik’s Cube
Many people consider the Rubik’s Cube’s comeback to have started with the 2003 World Championships, but it’s not quite so simple. After all, the Rubik’s Cube never actually disappeared. It was featured on The Simpsons in 1991, and in 1995, Diamond Cutters International made the “Masterpiece Cube” to commemorate the Rubik’s Cube’s 15th anniversary. It’s valued at $2.5 million, and is made of amethysts, rubies, emeralds, and gold. Although the classic 3x3 was not selling well during this period, Rubik’s continued to make other twisty puzzles, with the 4x4 being released in 1982 and the Rubik’s Magic in 1986. Starting in the late 1990s, cubers began to meet on online forums, discussing tricks and methods, as well as talking about a possible cubing revival. Jessica Fridrich released her famous CFOP (Cross, First two layers, orient last layer, permute last layer) method in 1997, followed by Lars Petrus’s method that same year and Gilles Roux’s in 2003. Their vision finally came to fruition when the 2003 Rubik’s Cube World Championships were held in Toronto on August 23-24, organized by Dan Gosbee. In total, there were 88 competitors from more than a dozen countries. There were significant hiccups during the competition, with it running far behind schedule on day one. The second day went better, however, and Dan Knights won with a world record single of 16.71 seconds and a world record average of 20 seconds. Although the competition was considered a success, the criticism of its hiccups got to Dan Gosbee, and he quit the cubing scene soon after. With the official organizer gone, the cubing community was worried. Would another world championship ever take place again?
Fortunately, the cubing community didn’t have to worry. Several competitions took place in the succeeding months, and in August of 2004, Ron van Bruchem and Tyson Mao founded the WCA (World Cube Association) to govern cubing competitions. After this, world championships continued to take place every two years until the 2019 world championships in Sydney. Speedcubing has evolved in several way since that monumental event. French cuber Thibaut Jacquinot achieved the first sub-10 single in May of 2005, and both the world record single and average have only gone down ever since. The latest single world record, as of March 2022, was 3.47, achieved by Yusheng Du of China in November of 2018. Speedcubing hardware has improved drastically as well (you can learn about those advancements in mechanism). Lastly, the speedcubing community has become way more popular over the years, enhanced by works like the speedcubing documentary Why We Cube, made by Chris Olson in 2018, and The Speedcubers, which appeared on Netflix in 2020. It looks like speedcubing has a bright future ahead.