Well, there was a Rubik's cube in some corner in our house, and like everyone else I used to turn it and see whether I can solve. Boy! it was hard. All I could do was to mix it some more and maybe just a one side of it. Maybe you have the same experience. Now and again, I have seen Rubik's cube come to my life again and again and this is about my Rubik's cube journey.
First time I saw it when my Late mathematics teacher who brought a Rubik's cube to our class. He said something about it and maybe about complexity. I never understood and I just forgot the fact for some time.
Then in the movie, the "The pursuit of happiness" it came back again. When Will Smith tried to solve it. And by solving the Rubik's cube in front of his future employer he declared the fact that he was smart than he looked. If you haven't watched the movie I greatly recommend as it is a great story of struggle of a man.
During same time, you tube randomly recommended me to speed cubing videos. I saw young men and women old over the world in competitions on fast solving, using one hand using a single hand and even juggling. Nowadays often we see Rubik's cube come out in X factor.
Do you know why you cannot avoid Rubik's cube?
It's because that is the most sold toy in the world. So far about two billion toys were sold. And there seems a boom of Rubik's cube back again thanks to internet and various organizations. So, because it is unavoidable I decided I should learn to solve Rubik's cube and I did it in two days.
My Rubik's cube journey.
First to solve Rubik's cube in our house was my father. And he used his own methods combined with some help from the you tube. He knew only a couple of algorithms. So, I knew struggling to solve it myself is time consuming. And after watching speed cubers day after day, it seemed better to learn some algorithms. It took only memorization of six algorithms, and I can solve the Rubik's cube now. And often I can do it within three to four minutes. I know it is nothing to brag about at all. As anyone can do it if they know what they are doing.
Following is the link to the site from which I learned the Rubik's cube. And once that is learned the mystery goes away. I know if I put some more effort to learn more algorithms, I would be able to solve it faster and easier. As I am not expecting to make a carrier out of it this is good enough to impress some who are lot lazy to learn to solve it.
Few facts I learned from my Rubik's cube journey are as follows.
It is never necessary to reinvent the wheel. When we have some problem, it is likely that someone else had a same problem and there may be plenty of guidelines and rules out there to help us with.
Like my teacher said, this little toy in my hand holds 43 quintillion possible combinations of the Rubiks Cube (43,252,003,274,489) with only one solution. If just a simple toy with 54 colored faces have this much complexity, imagine how much complexity is there inside our brains, inside our bodies, inside our houses and in this universe. How can we make sense of such a vast complexity? Can we ever even think about solving our problem of life? What manual is ever going to work. It seems every guru who claims themselves that they know the answer to life are just stranded on their own. As there cannot be a single solution to complexity the life holds. Maybe that is the massage my teacher wanted to give us holding a Rubik's cube in front of our class, which was not in the syllabus at all.
Fun facts about Rubik's cube
Original Name: It was first known as the “Magic Cube” or “Bűvös Kocka” in Hungarian.
Inventor’s Challenge: Ernő Rubik, the inventor, took about a month to solve the Cube after creating it.
Speed Cubing Competitions: The first-ever World Championship was held in 1982, and the winner was Minh Thai from the USA with a time of 22.95 seconds.
Most Expensive Cube: The “Masterpiece Cube,” worth US $2.5 million, was created for the 15th anniversary of the Rubik’s Cube.
Young Author: The first guide to solving the Cube was written by a 13-year-old, Patrick Bossert, in 1981.
Robot Record: A robot named Sub1 solved the Cube in just 0.887 seconds.
Best-Selling Toy: In 2015, the Rubik’s Cube was the best-selling toy in Walmart with over $111 million in retail sales.
Cultural Icon: The Cube has become an icon of intelligence and has influenced pop culture, including street art and tattoos.
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