In the mid-1970s, Ernő was a geometry teacher. Explaining dimensions and 3D effects is not easy, but this exercise will lead him to create the most famous game in the world. Here is the incredible story of the inventor of the cult object of our childhood.
Born in Budapest in 1944, in the middle of World War II, Ernő has always been creative and passionate about strategy. After a career in Fine Arts and an architecture diploma obtained at the age of 23, he continued his studies at the Hungarian Higher School of Applied Arts, before working as an architect for four years. In 1975, he became a professor, received a monthly income of 150 euros and has never left his native Hungary. But his life will soon change: Little did Ernő know that he was about to create the game that is currently the best-selling game in the world and has been passed down from generation to generation.
It was by wanting to solve a geometry problem that he created the most famous game of all time.
The story goes that he was looking for a way to show his students motion in 3D, but he claims he was “simply looking to solve a geometry problem.” In 1974, he came up with the idea of assembling eight small cubes together while giving them the possibility of moving. This question obsesses him: how to connect them while allowing them to move individually? This is how Ernő Rubik created his first functional prototype which quickly gave birth to the famous Rubik’s Cube!
To begin, he used wood, rubber bands, and paper clips, creating a movable work of art capable of performing actions the world had never seen before. The Rubik’s Cube is unbreakable and its pieces can be moved infinitely by rotation. To give meaning to the rotations of the cube, he opts for the simplest and strongest solution: primary colors. By putting colored stickers on his cube, Ernő Rubik knows that he has just created an extraordinary object.
When he begins his first rotations, he realizes that it is also a 3D puzzle. Despite the billions of possible combinations, the architect intuitively understands that there is a method to solve the cube without depending on chance. It will take him weeks to solve his cube, which is normal when we know that there is 43 quintillion possible permutations on a 3 x 3 Rubik’s Cube.
Initially, his invention was called “Magic Cube”, but Ideal Toy, the company behind the famous Teddy Bear (1903) which entered into a partnership to distribute the cube internationally, proposed using the Rubik’s name. You should know that at the time, for a proper name to be accepted as a trademark, it had to be rare enough not to appear more than 10 times in the New York directory. This is the case with Rubik and this is how the cube was renamed after its inventor to become, from 1981, the success story that we know today!