The Inventor
Erno Rubik was born in Budapest, Hungary during World War II. His father was a flight engineer at the Esztergom airplane factory, his mother a poet. He graduated from the Technical University, Budapest (M?szaki Egyetem) in 1967 as an architectural engineer and began postgraduate studies in sculpting and interior architecture. From 1971 to 1975 he worked as an architect, then became a professor at the Budapest College of Applied Arts (Iparm?vészeti F?iskola). He has spent all his life in Hungary..
"Space always intrigued me, with its incredibly rich possibilities, space alteration by (architectural) objects, objects' transformation in space (sculpture, design), movement in space and in time, their correlation, their repercussion on mankind, the relation between man and space, the object and time. I think the CUBE arose from this interest, from this search for expression and for this always more increased acuteness of these thoughts..."
In the early 1980s, he became editor of a game and puzzle journal called ...És játék ("...and games"), then became self-employed in 1983, founding the Rubik Stúdió, where he designed furniture and games. In 1987 he became professor with full tenure; in 1990 he became the president of the Hungarian Engineering Academy (Magyar Mérnöki Akadémia). At the Academy, he created the International Rubik Foundation to support especially talented young engineers and industrial designers.
Presently he is mainly working on video game development and architectural topics and is still leading the Rubik Studios..
He is known to be a very introverted and hardly accessible person, almost impossible to contact or get for autographs. He typically refuses to attend speedcubing events. However, he attended the 2007 World Championship in Budapest.
The World's Greatest Puzzle
The Rubik's Cube is a mechanical puzzle invented in 197 by Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture Ern? Rubik. Originally called the "Magic Cube" by its
inventor, this puzzle was renamed "Rubik's Cube" by Ideal Toys in 1980 and won the German Game of the Year special award for Best Puzzle that year. 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 classic Rubik's Cube, each of the six faces is covered by 9 stickers, among six solid colours (traditionally being white, yellow, orange, red, blue, and green). A pivot mechanism enables each face to turn independently, thus mixing up the colours. For the puzzle to be solved, each face must be a solid colour.
The Cube celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary in 2005, when a special edition 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, and different packaging. There exist four widely available variations: the 2×2×2 (Pocket Cube, also Mini Cube, Junior Cube, or Ice Cube), the standard 3×3×3 cube, the 4×4×4 (Rubik's Revenge, or Master Cube), and the 5×5×5 (Professor's Cube). Recently, larger sizes are also on the market (V-Cube 6 and V-Cube 7). All of these items belong to a broad category of puzzles commonly referred to as "twisty puzzles".
For readability, 3x3x3 is frequently abbreviated 3×3 (and similarly for the other sizes) when there is no ambiguity. Common misspellings include "rubix cube", "rubics cube", "rubick's cube", and "rubiks cube".