Rubik's Cube
It's from 1980, before you were born.
- Maker
- Ernő Rubik / Ideal Toy Corp
- Type
- Puzzle
- Debuted
- 1980 (worldwide)
- Note
- 43 quintillion combinations
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About
As of 2026, it's 46 years old.
Hungarian professor Ernő Rubik invented his 'Magic Cube' in 1974 to teach his students about three-dimensional geometry — then realized he couldn't solve it himself. After a global relaunch as the Rubik's Cube in 1980, it became one of the best-selling toys ever and the source of immeasurable family-room frustration.
The cube has exactly 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 possible arrangements and exactly one solution, a ratio that has driven millions of people to peel off the stickers and 'solve' it that way. Today speedcubers solve it in under four seconds; the rest of us solved it in 1983 and never touched it again.
Maddening, elegant, and eternally unsolved on most coffee tables, the Rubik's Cube is the puzzle that humbled a planet.
