The Rubik's Cube is a 3-D combination puzzle originally invented in 1974 by Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture Ernő Rubik. Originally called the Magic Cube, the puzzle was licensed by Rubik to be sold by Pentangle Puzzles in the UK in 1978, and then by Ideal Toy Corp in 1980 via businessman Tibor Laczi and Seven Towns founder Tom Kremer. The cube was released internationally in 1980 and became one of the most recognized icons in popular culture. It won the 1980 German Game of the Year special award for Best Puzzle. As of 14 March 2021, over 450 million cubes had been sold worldwide, making it the world's bestselling puzzle game and bestselling toy. The Rubik's Cube was inducted into the US National Toy Hall of Fame in 2014.
The Rubik's Revenge is a 4×4×4 version of the Rubik's Cube. It was released in 1981. Invented by Péter Sebestény, the cube was nearly called the Sebestény Cube until a somewhat last-minute decision changed the puzzle's name to attract fans of the original Rubik's Cube. Unlike the original puzzle, it has no fixed facets: the centre facets are free to move to different positions.
Optimal solutions for Rubik's Cube refer to solutions that are the shortest. There are two common ways to measure the length of a solution. The first is to count the number of quarter turns. The second is to count the number of outer-layer twists, called "face turns". A move to turn an outer layer two quarter (90°) turns in the same direction would be counted as two moves in the quarter turn metric (QTM), but as one turn in the face metric.
The Pocket Cube is a 2×2×2 version of the Rubik's Cube. The cube consists of 8 pieces, all corners.
Speedcubing is a competitive sport involving solving a variety of combination puzzles, the most famous being the 3x3x3 puzzle or Rubik's Cube, as quickly as possible. A person who practices solving twisty puzzles competitively is known as a speedcuber, or a cuber. For most puzzles, solving involves performing a series of moves, known as algorithms, that alters a scrambled puzzle into a solved state, in which every face of the puzzle is a single, solid color.
The Professor's Cube is a 5×5×5 version of the original Rubik's Cube. It has qualities in common with both the 3×3×3 Rubik's Cube and the 4×4×4 Rubik's Revenge, and solution strategies for both can be applied.
The Pyraminx is a regular tetrahedron puzzle in the style of Rubik's Cube. It was made and patented by Uwe Mèffert after the original 3 layered Rubik's Cube by Ernő Rubik, and introduced by Tomy Toys of Japan in 1981.
David Breyer Singmaster was an American-British mathematician who was emeritus professor of mathematics at London South Bank University, England. He had a huge personal collection of mechanical puzzles and books of brain teasers. He was most famous for being an early adopter and enthusiastic promoter of the Rubik's Cube. His Notes on Rubik's "Magic Cube" which he began compiling in 1979 provided the first mathematical analysis of the Cube as well as providing one of the first published solutions. The book contained his cube notation which allowed the recording of Rubik's Cube moves, and which quickly became the standard.
The Megaminx or Mégaminx is a dodecahedron-shaped puzzle similar to the Rubik's Cube. It has a total of 50 movable pieces to rearrange, compared to the 20 movable pieces of the Rubik's Cube.
Jessica Fridrich is a professor at Binghamton University, who specializes in data hiding applications in digital imagery. She is also known for documenting and popularizing the CFOP method, one of the most commonly used methods for speedsolving the Rubik's Cube, also known as speedcubing. She is considered one of the pioneers of speedcubing, along with Lars Petrus. Nearly all of the fastest speedcubers have based their methods on Fridrich's, usually referred to as CFOP, that is,.
The Rubik's Cube group is a group that represents the structure of the Rubik's Cube mechanical puzzle. Each element of the set corresponds to a cube move, which is the effect of any sequence of rotations of the cube's faces. With this representation, not only can any cube move be represented, but also any position of the cube as well, by detailing the cube moves required to rotate the solved cube into that position. Indeed with the solved position as a starting point, there is a one-to-one correspondence between each of the legal positions of the Rubik's Cube and the elements of . The group operation is the composition of cube moves, corresponding to the result of performing one cube move after another.
Lars Erik Petrus is an accomplished speedcuber. He has been described as a Rubik's Cube icon and master.
The CFOP method, also known as the Fridrich method, is one of the most commonly used methods in speedsolving a 3×3×3 Rubik's Cube. This method was first developed in the early 1980s combining innovations by a number of speed cubers. Czech speedcuber and the namesake of the method Jessica Fridrich is generally credited for popularizing it by publishing it online in 1997.
Tyson Mao is an American Rubik's Cube speedsolver. He is a co-founder and a former board member of the World Cube Association, an organization that holds competitive events for the Rubik's Cube. In 2005, he set the world record for 3x3x3 blindfolded. In 2006, he appeared on the CW Television Network's Beauty and the Geek as one of the participants of the second incarnation of the reality television show.
The V-Cube 6 is a 6×6×6 version of the original Rubik's Cube. The first mass-produced 6×6×6 was invented by Panagiotis Verdes and is produced by the Greek company Verdes Innovations SA. Other such puzzles have since been introduced by a number of Chinese companies, most of which have mechanisms which improve on the original. Unlike the original puzzle, it has no fixed facets: the center facets are free to move to different positions.
The Pyraminx Crystal is a dodecahedral puzzle similar to the Rubik's Cube and the Megaminx. It is manufactured by Uwe Mèffert and has been sold in his puzzle shop since 2008.
The Void Cube is a 3-D mechanical puzzle similar to a Rubik's Cube, with the notable difference being that the center pieces are missing, which causes the puzzle to resemble a level 1 Menger sponge. The core used on the Rubik's Cube is also absent, creating holes straight through the cube on all three axes. Due to the restricted volume of the puzzle it employs an entirely different structural mechanism from a regular Rubik's Cube, though the possible moves are the same. The Void Cube was invented by Katsuhiko Okamoto. Gentosha Education, in Japan, holds the license to manufacture official Void Cubes. These official designs are also sold under the Rubik's brand, owned by Spin Master Ltd., and workalikes are available from a variety of manufacturers. Speed-solving the Void Cube is common in exhibition but is not an official World Cube Association competition event.
The original Rubik's cube was a mechanical 3×3×3 cube puzzle invented in 1974 by the Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture Ernő Rubik. Extensions of the Rubik's cube have been around for a long time and come in both hardware and software forms. The major extension have been the availability of cubes of larger size and the availability of the more complex cubes with marked centres. The properties of Rubik’s family cubes of any size together with some special attention to software cubes is the main focus of this article. Many properties are mathematical in nature and are functions of the cube size variable.
The superflip or 12-flip is a Rubik's Cube configuration in which all 20 of the movable pieces are in the correct permutation, and the eight corners are correctly oriented, but all twelve of the edges are oriented incorrectly ("flipped"). It has been shown that the shortest path between a solved cube and the Superflip position requires 20 moves under the usual half-turn metric (HTM), and that no position requires more moves.
The Gear Cube is a 3-D combination puzzle designed and created by Dutch puzzle maker Oskar van Deventer based on an idea by Bram Cohen. It was initially produced by Shapeways in 2009 and known as "Caution Cube" due to the likelihood of getting one's fingers stuck between the gears while speedcubing. Later, in 2010, it was mass-produced by Meffert's as the "Gear Cube".
