from educational puzzles to global tournaments

It is perhaps the most famous puzzle: the Rubik’s Cube. This three-dimensional geometric puzzle is made up of 26 colored cubes which can move on all sides, in more than 43 quintillion, that is to say a billion trillion positions. Cubes which appear free from any attachment but which do not necessarily fall. A puzzle coming out of that of Erno Rubik, a Hungarian architecture professor in 1974 who wanted to push his students to think in perspectives, on three axes. As a result, today the whole world is struggling with his invention, which he himself took more than a month to solve the first time.

The Rubik’s Cube, sold more than 500 million copies around the world, has long since lost its simple educational vocation, as the sense of competition is inherent in human nature, at least in certain humans, who now compete in tournaments. The last record was broken in June 2023 by Max Park, a 21-year-old American, in 3.13 seconds. And there are also those who practice speedcubing, that is to say the sport which consists of solving a Rubik’s Cube as quickly as possible with the hands, but also with the feet, with the eyes closed or even while holding a breath.

As for you, if you have never managed to go all the way, know that there are now a whole bunch of derivative products to achieve this: explanatory manuals, and even lubricants to properly oil your Rubik’s Cube. In any case, I hope that I will have made all those who are listening to us and who are faced with a puzzle want to not give up in the face of difficulties, because that is undoubtedly the beauty of life that things are not always simple and easy, and because, as Nelson Mandela said: “It always seems impossible until you do it“.