The Rubik’s Cube, both a torture and a delight to many of us, today celebrates its 40th birthday, and Google has joined in with an interactive Rubik’s Cube Google doodle.
I’ve already spent about 15 minutes playing around with it, so before you type “www.google.com” into your browser, just take a moment to prioritize the tasks of the day. Otherwise, they’ll surely be lost.
The Rubik’s Cube is said to be the most popular puzzle game in the world, with 1 in every 8 people on the planet having tried their luck at the color-matching, geometry-based game. But it’s much more than a game. For years, we’ve seen the Rubik’s cube (and those who can solve the puzzle quickly) as a marker of true genius.
Remember this?
That scene was also impressive, but there are folks in real life who can solve the king of puzzles in fewer than six seconds.
Rubik’s Cube inventor Erno Rubik, a sculptor and architect from Hungary, spent a long while watching the colors on his little design invention change until he realized that the real fun was getting it back to its original pattern. Back then, in the 1970’s, he was calling it the Magic Cube. After just a few years, the Rubik’s Cube had become hugely popular and, obviously, gotten a new name.
Today, the Rubik’s Cube lives on in every grandparent’s home, in every doctor’s office, and with a little help from Google, on the Internet.