WEBVTT - Selects: The Rubik's Cube Episode 0:00:00.600 --> 0:00:03.279 Hey, everybody, it's me Josh and for this week's select 0:00:03.320 --> 0:00:06.960 I've chosen our August two thousand nineteen episode I'm one 0:00:07.040 --> 0:00:10.200 of the best selling toys of all time, the Rubik's Cube. 0:00:10.600 --> 0:00:14.840 It's an engaging episode on an unlikely global trend sprung 0:00:14.920 --> 0:00:23.840 from a Hungarian architects beautiful mind. So enjoy. Welcome to 0:00:23.920 --> 0:00:33.200 Stuff you should know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, 0:00:33.200 --> 0:00:35.800 you're welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's 0:00:35.880 --> 0:00:39.000 Charles W. Chuck Bryant, Jerry's over there, and we're cubing 0:00:39.040 --> 0:00:43.240 it up with Rubic the Cube. Did you see um 0:00:43.280 --> 0:00:48.559 that cartoon, Rubic the Amazing Cube? Did you come across that? And? Okay, 0:00:49.000 --> 0:00:52.080 I I feel like we are um well within our 0:00:52.159 --> 0:00:54.800 rights as far as fair use goes, since we are 0:00:54.840 --> 0:00:58.560 talking about this, to at least play the highly disturbing 0:00:58.600 --> 0:01:03.680 but also st hugely cute voice of Rubic the Amazing Cube. 0:01:03.720 --> 0:01:10.440 Can I play this real quick? Sure? Okay? That is it? 0:01:10.440 --> 0:01:14.399 It is awfully unusual, especially when you see this cube 0:01:14.920 --> 0:01:17.840 they just basically took do you remember the goblin face 0:01:18.040 --> 0:01:20.560 on maximum overdrive on that on the front of that 0:01:20.760 --> 0:01:24.720 semi sort of it's kind of like a cuter version 0:01:24.760 --> 0:01:27.400 of that that they put onto a Rubik's Cube, put 0:01:27.440 --> 0:01:29.880 some feet on it, and then gave it superpowers. That's 0:01:29.959 --> 0:01:34.520 Rubic the Amazing Cube. So back to Rubic, Chuck. Yeah, 0:01:34.840 --> 0:01:36.319 it was kind of hard to believe that it took 0:01:36.400 --> 0:01:39.800 until two thousand fourteen for this thing to be granted 0:01:40.000 --> 0:01:44.679 National Toy Hall of Fame inductee status. Uh. It seems 0:01:44.720 --> 0:01:46.959 like it would have been much sooner than that because 0:01:47.920 --> 0:01:51.880 they have sold hundreds and hundreds of millions of Rubik's 0:01:51.920 --> 0:01:56.480 Cube since I had one. I still have one. I 0:01:56.480 --> 0:02:00.280 could do it at one point. Oh really, Yeah, I 0:02:00.280 --> 0:02:02.680 could do it in a couple of minutes. Wow, Chuck, 0:02:02.720 --> 0:02:05.640 I'm impressed. I had no idea. Yeah, I can still do. 0:02:06.920 --> 0:02:09.440 I can still do one side and like the top 0:02:09.560 --> 0:02:13.400 row surrounding that side on all sides, and that's where 0:02:13.440 --> 0:02:17.160 I completely forget. Oh, I see, So you couldn't do 0:02:17.240 --> 0:02:19.000 it in a couple of minutes now you just have 0:02:19.560 --> 0:02:24.600 you could in the past. Yeah when I was nine. Okay, Um, 0:02:24.639 --> 0:02:28.200 I'm impressed. I've never been able to solve a Rubik's Cube. 0:02:28.600 --> 0:02:33.799 I've never been sucked in enough to um like, really 0:02:33.880 --> 0:02:37.320 spend a significant amount of time. But um I was 0:02:37.360 --> 0:02:42.079 playing with my niece's Rubik's Cube the other day studying 0:02:42.120 --> 0:02:46.359 for this, and um I was like, yeah, I could 0:02:46.360 --> 0:02:48.800 see how somebody would become obsessed with this kind of 0:02:48.800 --> 0:02:50.880 thing for sure. Yeah, it was fun and it was 0:02:51.000 --> 0:02:53.920 you know, to call it all the rage as an understatement. 0:02:54.440 --> 0:02:57.360 It was one of the most popular toys of all time, 0:02:57.800 --> 0:03:04.040 and then in by a math enthusiast in Hungary, an 0:03:04.120 --> 0:03:09.880 architect professor named er No Rubik. Appropriately enough, they named 0:03:09.960 --> 0:03:12.440 him after the cube. That's right. And if you don't 0:03:12.480 --> 0:03:16.519 know what we're talking about, it seems weird to describe 0:03:16.520 --> 0:03:19.240 a Rubik's Cube, but we'll probably be taking a task 0:03:19.280 --> 0:03:22.880 if we do not. I would say, just come out 0:03:22.919 --> 0:03:25.200 from under the rock that you've been living under. But 0:03:25.320 --> 0:03:27.360 we may have some young listeners who don't even know 0:03:27.400 --> 0:03:30.600 what this thing is, this piece of eighties ephemera, even 0:03:30.600 --> 0:03:33.840 though it's not ephemera because they're still pretty popular. But 0:03:34.080 --> 0:03:37.240 it is a cube made up of twenty six little 0:03:37.280 --> 0:03:40.240 mini cubes called cubs, which is kind of a cute 0:03:40.240 --> 0:03:42.200 little name. I think. So you're not as cute as 0:03:42.240 --> 0:03:46.960 Rubic the Amazing Cube, but yeah, little cubs and they're 0:03:46.960 --> 0:03:49.440 in a three inch by three inch by three inch 0:03:50.280 --> 0:03:52.240 well that's not quite true, a three by three by 0:03:52.240 --> 0:03:56.720 three grid, eventually creating a cube that measures two point 0:03:56.720 --> 0:04:00.760 two five inches or five point seven centimeters per side. Right, 0:04:01.280 --> 0:04:04.560 And so what there's six six cube faces because it's 0:04:04.560 --> 0:04:11.800 a cube, and each face has a different color. There's orange, blue, green, yellow, white, 0:04:11.800 --> 0:04:16.560 and red and um. When you when you mix these 0:04:16.560 --> 0:04:19.839 things up, it's just a jumble, a riot of different 0:04:19.880 --> 0:04:22.200 colors like you've never seen your life. But the point 0:04:22.279 --> 0:04:27.080 is to move these cubes around through the eighteen different 0:04:27.120 --> 0:04:30.680 ways you can move any given cube, um, so that 0:04:30.880 --> 0:04:34.440 all of the colors are lined up, all the colored 0:04:34.480 --> 0:04:36.960 cubes are all the same on each face. And it 0:04:37.000 --> 0:04:41.440 sounds easy, friends, it is not easy, not at all. 0:04:41.760 --> 0:04:44.040 Like maybe for some people it's easy, but for the 0:04:44.080 --> 0:04:47.760 rest of us, normal focus normis, it is not easy 0:04:48.000 --> 0:04:50.920 in any way, shape or form. No, it is not. 0:04:51.279 --> 0:04:54.440 Uh And in fact, they even suggest that you read 0:04:54.520 --> 0:04:57.120 about how to solve the Rubik's cube. It is the 0:04:57.279 --> 0:05:00.200 very rare individual that can literally just figure here it 0:05:00.240 --> 0:05:04.240 out without any help at all. Um, that's really tough 0:05:04.279 --> 0:05:06.520 to do. So it's not like you're not a cheat. 0:05:06.960 --> 0:05:08.760 If you look at like how to solve the Rubik's 0:05:08.760 --> 0:05:12.760 cube and then memorize these patterns and practice them. That's 0:05:12.760 --> 0:05:15.039 sort of the point, right, Yeah, like go look it 0:05:15.120 --> 0:05:17.640 up like it's fine. No one will will get mad 0:05:17.680 --> 0:05:19.520 at you for that, because it's no fun to never 0:05:19.560 --> 0:05:22.000 solve a puzzle. Well, that's why I think I've never 0:05:22.040 --> 0:05:24.280 gotten sucked in. I was like, I'm not even there's 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:27.840 no way I'm gonna possibly stumble across this, and I 0:05:27.920 --> 0:05:31.440 just don't think like this. My spatial reasoning is terrible. 0:05:31.680 --> 0:05:34.839 I'm not great at math. I'm color blind. Everything just 0:05:34.880 --> 0:05:39.719 looks white. You. No, it's really not. I can't discern 0:05:39.880 --> 0:05:46.400 squares from from circles. It's just I'm off. So um. Originally, 0:05:47.040 --> 0:05:50.200 the Rubik's cube was called the magic cube, and it 0:05:50.240 --> 0:05:53.200 was invented, like you said, by Erno Rubik, who was Hungarian. 0:05:53.320 --> 0:05:56.640 So it was originally called the Beavish Kotzka, which is 0:05:57.760 --> 0:06:01.279 magic cube, and the Hungarian means butt head. I believe 0:06:01.839 --> 0:06:05.800 it does. The magic butt head was Bevish and butt head. 0:06:06.160 --> 0:06:08.960 All right, nice man, It's like, where's he going with 0:06:09.000 --> 0:06:13.280 this after all these years? It's good. No, I didn't, 0:06:13.640 --> 0:06:16.719 but I was like, I'm I'm going with this, Chuck. 0:06:16.760 --> 0:06:21.240 I trust him and I paid off. So Mr Rubik 0:06:21.760 --> 0:06:25.680 got his Hungarian patent on the mechanical design of this 0:06:25.720 --> 0:06:31.279 in nine and it was in Hungary only for a while. Uh, 0:06:31.320 --> 0:06:33.880 and it did pretty well and hungry. Um, but that's 0:06:33.920 --> 0:06:36.520 kind of where it stayed. It was. Uh. It was 0:06:36.640 --> 0:06:39.400 because of the politics of the time and the fact 0:06:39.400 --> 0:06:41.600 that it was hungry. It was not super easy to 0:06:41.640 --> 0:06:45.080 get a an American patent or to bring it over 0:06:45.120 --> 0:06:47.360 and market it here in the West, so it was 0:06:47.400 --> 0:06:51.680 pretty much a Hungarian local sensation for it's early like 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:55.719 probably first year. Yeah, he had like a Hungarian toy 0:06:56.040 --> 0:06:58.920 manufacturer make like ten thousand of them, but he wasn't 0:06:58.960 --> 0:07:01.799 happy with him, so he cut the runoff at five thousand. 0:07:02.120 --> 0:07:04.240 So there were five thousands of these things floating around 0:07:04.279 --> 0:07:07.479 Budapest and and maybe Hungry in general. And it was 0:07:07.560 --> 0:07:11.640 just total serendipity that there was a guy named Tibor Laxi. 0:07:12.160 --> 0:07:14.280 And I'm quite sure that's not exactly how you say 0:07:14.320 --> 0:07:16.360 his last name, but that's how it's how it spelled. 0:07:16.400 --> 0:07:20.000 It's probably like Lucia or something like that. But um, 0:07:20.080 --> 0:07:22.520 t Bor, I'm I just love that name. It's a 0:07:22.560 --> 0:07:26.000 great name. Um. He was an entrepreneur who had left 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:29.520 Hungry and moved to Austria, so he had really developed 0:07:29.520 --> 0:07:32.239 a taste for capitalism. While he happened to be visiting 0:07:32.240 --> 0:07:35.000 back home in Budapest when he was at a restaurant 0:07:35.000 --> 0:07:38.320 and he noticed a waiter playing with the Beavish kotska, 0:07:38.400 --> 0:07:42.760 the magic cube, and um, he said, you there, what 0:07:43.000 --> 0:07:46.160 is that? And uh, he said, well, it's the Beavish kotzka. 0:07:46.880 --> 0:07:48.920 How about I sell it to you for a dollar? 0:07:49.160 --> 0:07:51.720 And I believe he bought that for a dollar, played 0:07:51.760 --> 0:07:53.360 around with it for a minute. It was like this 0:07:53.520 --> 0:07:55.840 could be big. So he found out who invented it, 0:07:56.040 --> 0:07:59.600 and he scheduled a meeting with Erno Rubic. Yeah, and 0:07:59.600 --> 0:08:03.240 he would later on that he that Erno Rubik had 0:08:03.280 --> 0:08:04.960 a lot to do with why he decided to get 0:08:04.960 --> 0:08:08.040 into business with him. Here's his quote. He said, when 0:08:08.120 --> 0:08:10.880 Rubik first walked into the room, I felt like giving 0:08:10.920 --> 0:08:13.040 him some money. He looked like a beggar. He was 0:08:13.120 --> 0:08:16.160 terribly dressed. You gotta remember this guy's a professor, so 0:08:16.800 --> 0:08:19.880 they're not known for their sharp attire. He was terribly 0:08:19.960 --> 0:08:22.600 dressed and he had a cheap Hungarian cigarette hanging out 0:08:22.600 --> 0:08:25.160 of his mouth. But I knew I had a genius 0:08:25.160 --> 0:08:29.080 on my hands, and I told him we could sell millions. 0:08:29.800 --> 0:08:32.719 Yeah he was right. Oh man, was he ever right? 0:08:32.840 --> 0:08:38.360 He understated it? Actually, um the t Boar, I'm just 0:08:38.360 --> 0:08:42.680 gonna call him t Boar. He took this magic cube 0:08:42.880 --> 0:08:47.080 and he started going to toy fairs. Uh, And I 0:08:47.120 --> 0:08:49.000 think he struck out at a few of them. But 0:08:49.080 --> 0:08:51.000 he really hit it out of the park at the 0:08:51.080 --> 0:08:54.800 Nuremberg Toy Fair when he met a toy expert who 0:08:55.200 --> 0:08:58.640 had connections with Ideal Toy company. Remember Ideal back in 0:08:58.640 --> 0:09:03.160 the day. I think I do for sure. I'm pretty 0:09:03.160 --> 0:09:07.960 sure they made that um the the uh what was 0:09:08.040 --> 0:09:11.800 the daredevil's name, Evil kin? I think they made the 0:09:11.840 --> 0:09:15.280 Evil kinevil stunt bike. You know what's funny is um 0:09:16.000 --> 0:09:19.000 they make those now for other they have there's like 0:09:19.000 --> 0:09:24.640 an incredible stunt bike with plastic girl. It's the same 0:09:24.640 --> 0:09:26.400 exact function. We have one in our house and you 0:09:26.520 --> 0:09:29.240 load it up and crank it and there she goes. 0:09:29.840 --> 0:09:31.880 Is it the exact same mold? They just put like 0:09:31.960 --> 0:09:35.400 different pain on it or something like that knockoff toys? Man, 0:09:35.480 --> 0:09:38.640 it's slightly different. Uh, in its design, but it's clearly 0:09:38.720 --> 0:09:43.319 like the same exact toy. So at the Nuremberg Toy Fair, Uh, 0:09:43.400 --> 0:09:47.920 Tibor runs into the guy from Ideal and they end 0:09:48.000 --> 0:09:50.880 up purchasing it. They purchased the rights to this, the 0:09:50.920 --> 0:09:54.280 global rights, and they they they basically sign up to 0:09:54.679 --> 0:09:58.360 create a million Rubik's cubes. Yeah, also we should say 0:09:58.360 --> 0:10:00.480 it this toy fair. He did a pretty smart thing. 0:10:00.520 --> 0:10:03.440 Instead of like buying a booth, he just came and 0:10:03.480 --> 0:10:06.640 worked the floor with Rubik's cubes and got this like 0:10:06.800 --> 0:10:09.520 ground buzz going by walking around and giving these things 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:13.440 to people, and like that's genius. Like for something like this, 0:10:13.760 --> 0:10:16.960 that's the perfect way to pique someone's curiosity is not 0:10:17.000 --> 0:10:21.480 to have some flashy uh like spinning giant Rubik's cube, 0:10:21.880 --> 0:10:23.880 is to actually get in the hands of people walking 0:10:23.880 --> 0:10:28.920 around the floor. Especially if you say, I'm Tibor, let's party. 0:10:29.480 --> 0:10:31.320 Should I bet you want to call it t boards Cube? 0:10:31.320 --> 0:10:33.480 It's pretty good name. He probably did, although he was 0:10:33.520 --> 0:10:37.640 smart because I remember originally it was called the Magic Cube. 0:10:37.960 --> 0:10:39.960 At some point. If it wasn't t Boor, it was 0:10:40.040 --> 0:10:43.440 Ideal who said we're gonna rename this the Rubik's Cube. 0:10:43.720 --> 0:10:46.640 And I'm sure erno Rubik was like, oh, okay, I 0:10:46.679 --> 0:10:48.760 guess if you insist. I wonder if he was into 0:10:48.800 --> 0:10:50.280 it or not, or if he pushed forward, or if 0:10:50.280 --> 0:10:52.360 he was like, I'm not really into that, but if 0:10:52.400 --> 0:10:55.000 you think it'll sell cubes, That's what I'm guessing he 0:10:55.040 --> 0:10:57.400 probably did. I don't think he was going to stand 0:10:57.400 --> 0:10:59.240 in the way of it, but he was not like 0:10:59.360 --> 0:11:02.719 vying for or by any means. That's my impression. But 0:11:02.760 --> 0:11:04.920 I'm just totally making that up, but that I have 0:11:05.000 --> 0:11:07.040 the same impression, which means that if you put our 0:11:07.040 --> 0:11:12.360 two in persons together, it equals fact. So Ideal sells 0:11:13.280 --> 0:11:17.160 one hundred million Rubik's cubes in the first two years. 0:11:18.800 --> 0:11:22.160 They just signed up to sell one million. They sold 0:11:22.160 --> 0:11:24.480 a hundred million in two years. Yeah, I mean, I'm 0:11:24.480 --> 0:11:27.720 sure they had problems keeping up with production. Uh. Some 0:11:27.800 --> 0:11:29.679 of the accolades and eight and eighty one at won 0:11:29.720 --> 0:11:33.000 the UK's Toy the Year Award two years running. Um 0:11:33.080 --> 0:11:36.360 In eighty two, there were five books about solving it 0:11:36.440 --> 0:11:38.960 on the New York Times bestseller list, one of which 0:11:39.040 --> 0:11:43.560 I owned. I owned the classic The Simple Solution to 0:11:43.559 --> 0:11:46.559 the Rubik's Cube by James G. Norris. He was a 0:11:46.640 --> 0:11:51.160 chemistry student at Stanford And get this, dude, this book 0:11:51.679 --> 0:11:56.360 was the number one best selling book of nine one period. 0:11:56.600 --> 0:12:01.400 He sold six point seven million books and it is 0:12:01.440 --> 0:12:04.560 still the fasting selling book in the history of Bantam Books. 0:12:04.800 --> 0:12:07.480 Is that right? Can you believe that out of all 0:12:07.480 --> 0:12:09.760 the books that year, that was the number one? I can, 0:12:09.920 --> 0:12:15.280 because that really kind of underscores just how nuts the 0:12:15.600 --> 0:12:19.120 not just America, the world went for Rubik's Cube, that 0:12:19.240 --> 0:12:21.920 the number one selling book was a book about solving 0:12:22.080 --> 0:12:25.040 the toy. That that that was it. Yeah, they had 0:12:25.040 --> 0:12:28.600 sold five hundred million of them by the time rolled around. 0:12:29.080 --> 0:12:31.440 So so talking about the books though for another second. 0:12:31.520 --> 0:12:34.680 At one point the number one, two, and four positions 0:12:34.720 --> 0:12:37.200 on the New York Times bestseller list where all Rubik's 0:12:37.280 --> 0:12:39.920 Cube Solution books. Three he was probably Stephen King or 0:12:39.960 --> 0:12:43.640 something probably, and one of those books was written by 0:12:43.640 --> 0:12:46.319 a twelve year old named Patrick Bossart called You Can 0:12:46.360 --> 0:12:50.120 Do the Cube, which is pretty adorable if you think 0:12:50.120 --> 0:12:52.520 about it, and Christians later made a movie called Gleaming 0:12:52.559 --> 0:12:55.280 the Cube, one of my all time favorites, which had 0:12:55.320 --> 0:12:57.200 nothing to do with Rubik's Cubes. As it turns out, 0:12:57.400 --> 0:13:01.360 it was about skateboarding. That's right. Um, So there's a 0:13:02.080 --> 0:13:06.160 just a craze going on around the world, like everyone 0:13:06.280 --> 0:13:09.720 is into the Rubik's cube. Everyone's buying one. They sold 0:13:09.800 --> 0:13:13.840 like I've seen anywhere from three hundred and fifty million. 0:13:14.200 --> 0:13:17.439 The highest I've seen is six hundred million. They sold 0:13:17.440 --> 0:13:20.240 a ton of these things, hundreds and hundreds of millions 0:13:20.240 --> 0:13:22.360 of them. Are those are the official too? There were 0:13:22.360 --> 0:13:25.760 plenty of knockoffs. Sure, there was books on the New 0:13:25.800 --> 0:13:30.120 York Times bestseller list about this. It was featured in Times, Scientific, 0:13:30.200 --> 0:13:34.280 American News, Scientists. Um. There was a paper that was 0:13:34.320 --> 0:13:37.400 printed in the New England Journal of Medicine that talked 0:13:37.400 --> 0:13:40.720 about cubists thumb, which is a real thing. It's a 0:13:40.800 --> 0:13:44.040 type of tendonitis in your thumb that you get in 0:13:44.200 --> 0:13:48.880 your non dominant hand because that's the hand that you 0:13:49.040 --> 0:13:52.600 used to stabilize the Rubik's cube. And so the edge 0:13:52.640 --> 0:13:54.959 of the cube pressing into the heel of your thumb 0:13:55.000 --> 0:13:57.839 where it meets the rest of your thumb um, that 0:13:57.880 --> 0:14:01.640 could create tendonitis. For people who were staying up for 0:14:02.720 --> 0:14:05.560 days on end just playing with this thing, trying to 0:14:05.760 --> 0:14:09.680 beat this puzzle. There was a craze like like no other. 0:14:10.400 --> 0:14:13.040 I say, we take a break, okay, uh, and we 0:14:13.120 --> 0:14:16.079 come back and we talk about uh Mr Rubick, or 0:14:16.120 --> 0:14:18.600 maybe he's a doctor. I'm gonna call him Dr Rubik, 0:14:19.280 --> 0:14:46.440 and how he created the mechanics of this puzzle. Alright, 0:14:46.480 --> 0:14:52.880 So supposedly Dr Rubik, surely he's a doctor. I would 0:14:53.000 --> 0:14:55.320 let's call him Professor Ruby because he was definitely an 0:14:55.440 --> 0:14:59.160 architecture professor in a math genius. Actually though, I'm I'm 0:14:59.200 --> 0:15:01.200 with you, he's got to be doctor, all right, Professor 0:15:01.280 --> 0:15:04.680 Dr Rubik. Uh supposedly was not even trying to create 0:15:04.680 --> 0:15:07.200 this puzzle in I'm sorry seventy four when he first 0:15:07.200 --> 0:15:10.240 started out um, as legend has it, he was trying 0:15:10.280 --> 0:15:13.720 to create a mathematical model for three D design class, 0:15:13.760 --> 0:15:17.640 which makes sense considering his job. Other people say, no, 0:15:17.800 --> 0:15:20.200 he was just really kind of guy to like to tinker. 0:15:20.560 --> 0:15:23.880 He was fascinated by geometry and shapes, and he was 0:15:23.960 --> 0:15:27.840 trying to just solve a problem of mechanics in three dimensions. 0:15:28.520 --> 0:15:31.200 But according to the Toy Hall of Fame, he was 0:15:31.280 --> 0:15:34.280 very much trying to invent a puzzle. Uh. And that 0:15:34.320 --> 0:15:37.360 may just be folklore. Yeah, he he knew what he wanted. 0:15:37.360 --> 0:15:40.120 He wanted to make this three by three cube that 0:15:40.240 --> 0:15:42.480 was made up of smaller cubes that could all like 0:15:43.040 --> 0:15:45.560 interact and twister around like he had the idea for 0:15:45.600 --> 0:15:49.040 the Rubik's cube, which was step one, but step two 0:15:49.120 --> 0:15:51.720 was a doozy, and that was figuring out how to 0:15:52.000 --> 0:15:57.040 invent a mechanical solution to make this thing work the 0:15:57.080 --> 0:16:01.240 way he wanted it to, and apparently was um. There 0:16:01.320 --> 0:16:03.600 was a pretty good article on mental floss by a 0:16:03.600 --> 0:16:07.320 guy named Noah Davis who recounted that um. One day, 0:16:07.400 --> 0:16:11.880 Rubic was walking down the Danube alongside the Danube in 0:16:11.920 --> 0:16:15.080 Budapest and looked down and noticed that there was just 0:16:15.200 --> 0:16:19.240 a pile of nice, polished rounded river rocks and thought, 0:16:19.880 --> 0:16:23.320 I've got it. I've been thinking about a cube. Everything's 0:16:23.320 --> 0:16:25.480 got to be a cube. But what if I added 0:16:25.520 --> 0:16:28.280 a sphere to the mix two and that these things 0:16:28.440 --> 0:16:31.320 rotated around usphere. That would give the freedom of motion 0:16:31.800 --> 0:16:34.520 that I need to make this thing work. And that 0:16:34.640 --> 0:16:37.840 was that That that that was the solution to the puzzle, 0:16:37.840 --> 0:16:40.160 as it were. Yeah, I mean, if you're like me 0:16:40.480 --> 0:16:42.680 and probably lots of other kids in the early eighties, 0:16:42.840 --> 0:16:45.560 you took your Rubik's cube apart at some point, did you. 0:16:45.720 --> 0:16:48.440 I never I never saw one, and lots of video 0:16:48.560 --> 0:16:50.720 on this. Yeah, oh yeah, I've got a screw driver 0:16:50.800 --> 0:16:54.160 out in pretty short order and put those things apart. Uh. 0:16:54.160 --> 0:16:55.680 And it's kind of cool when you look at the 0:16:55.960 --> 0:16:58.080 you know, when you take all those cubs out, you 0:16:58.120 --> 0:17:00.960 get down to the center and the three x s 0:17:01.720 --> 0:17:04.280 um and they have each one is tipped with two 0:17:04.280 --> 0:17:07.040 opposing center cubis. It's kind of cool looking. And then 0:17:07.080 --> 0:17:09.919 it makes sense how all these things fit together and 0:17:09.960 --> 0:17:12.640 how it works. Yeah, another way to think about it 0:17:12.680 --> 0:17:14.919 is just think about like a sphere a ball, and 0:17:14.960 --> 0:17:18.680 then you've got six arms sticking out in in um 0:17:18.760 --> 0:17:21.040 at right angles from it, so that it forms a 0:17:21.080 --> 0:17:24.520 three dimensional plus side plus signed and at the end 0:17:24.560 --> 0:17:26.879 of each one of these arms is a cube, a 0:17:26.960 --> 0:17:31.200 colored cube. And though that's the skeleton of the thing. 0:17:31.640 --> 0:17:35.040 And then what what Erno Rubik figured out was that 0:17:35.040 --> 0:17:37.399 that's all that needed to be attached to the center. 0:17:37.520 --> 0:17:40.639 You could make the other cubes attached to those those 0:17:41.000 --> 0:17:45.840 face cubes a center cubes qubis um. You could make 0:17:46.320 --> 0:17:49.480 some cubes qubs attached to those cubs, and then other 0:17:49.560 --> 0:17:51.960 cubs attached to the other cubs, and then they will 0:17:52.000 --> 0:17:54.680 all kind of rotate around each other, but they're all 0:17:54.720 --> 0:17:58.080 really rotating on three different axis coming out of that sphere. 0:17:58.480 --> 0:18:02.200 It's a gene like this guy has gotten like if 0:18:02.240 --> 0:18:04.800 he started a craze and is you know, kind of 0:18:04.880 --> 0:18:10.880 viewed as this great inventor for the toy like math, physics, architecture, 0:18:11.400 --> 0:18:13.840 um like in the in a number of different fields. 0:18:13.840 --> 0:18:17.080 He's ugansical engineering for sure. Yeah, he's viewed as just 0:18:17.240 --> 0:18:21.280 a god in some senses for for cracking this this 0:18:21.600 --> 0:18:26.480 problem and creating this three dimensional structure that actually works 0:18:26.520 --> 0:18:29.800 in in reality that people can learn and study from. 0:18:29.800 --> 0:18:32.840 That's right. So he's figured out this the mechanics of 0:18:32.880 --> 0:18:35.480 it all, but it's still not a puzzle yet until 0:18:35.560 --> 0:18:39.280 he applies these colors. That's what makes it a puzzle, because, 0:18:39.400 --> 0:18:41.440 like we said at the beginning, the idea is that 0:18:41.920 --> 0:18:44.159 you have all the colors on each side matching one another. 0:18:44.760 --> 0:18:48.040 He applies these colored stickers all over, mixes and twisted 0:18:48.119 --> 0:18:51.040 up a little bit, and he's like, I've invented the cube. 0:18:51.560 --> 0:18:55.239 And he's like, wait a minute, I don't know how 0:18:55.280 --> 0:18:58.200 to solve the puzzle. So he actually had built this thing, 0:18:58.760 --> 0:19:02.399 stickered it up and looked at it, I imagine, with 0:19:02.440 --> 0:19:06.200 some level of accomplishment, and then realized that the biggest, 0:19:06.280 --> 0:19:09.760 probably uh, the hardest thing to do in this whole 0:19:09.760 --> 0:19:13.120 process still lay in front of him, which was because 0:19:13.119 --> 0:19:15.760 there were no books out at this point. Right. He 0:19:15.840 --> 0:19:18.919 invented it. So he had to figure out how to 0:19:19.080 --> 0:19:21.639 solve his own puzzle. And it took him a while. 0:19:22.359 --> 0:19:24.560 It took him a month from what I saw, Yeah, 0:19:24.600 --> 0:19:27.679 and I imagine he worked on this pretty much NonStop 0:19:28.320 --> 0:19:30.879 to figure this thing out. He he did, and he 0:19:30.920 --> 0:19:34.879 would like write down like the different different moves, combination 0:19:34.960 --> 0:19:38.439 of moves which now they're called algorithms. Um, it's just 0:19:38.560 --> 0:19:40.119 types of moves that if you do them in a 0:19:40.240 --> 0:19:46.600 specific sequence, will solve a specific jumbled Rubik's cube. Right, Um, 0:19:46.720 --> 0:19:49.240 So he wrote them down. He kind of kept track 0:19:49.280 --> 0:19:52.280 of it, and that was like the first the first, um, 0:19:52.480 --> 0:19:55.159 first time anyone had kind of applied analysis to this. 0:19:55.240 --> 0:19:57.280 But it would not be the last. Obviously. He's the 0:19:57.280 --> 0:20:01.840 New York Times bestseller. His shows by the reason why 0:20:02.160 --> 0:20:05.800 it's so difficult to solve a Rubik's cube just by 0:20:05.880 --> 0:20:11.800 happenstance is that just the sheer number of possible configurations 0:20:11.840 --> 0:20:16.639 of the cube. Right, each face has nine cubs, and 0:20:16.680 --> 0:20:21.040 there's six um faces, so there's fifty four cubs, but 0:20:21.200 --> 0:20:23.760 they all relate to one another, and so if you 0:20:23.800 --> 0:20:26.840 move one, that's one configuration. If you move it another direction, 0:20:26.880 --> 0:20:29.239 that's another configuration, and so on and so on, and 0:20:29.280 --> 0:20:32.800 so with these fifty four cubs, Chuck, are you ready 0:20:32.840 --> 0:20:38.560 for this? Yes? The possible number of configurations is forty 0:20:38.600 --> 0:20:42.800 three quintillion, two hundred and fifty two quadrillion, three trillion, 0:20:42.960 --> 0:20:45.640 two hundred and seventy four billion, four hundred and eighty 0:20:45.720 --> 0:20:50.439 nine million, eight hundred and fifty six thousand possible configurations 0:20:50.440 --> 0:20:55.840 of a Rubik's cube. And one of them one is 0:20:55.920 --> 0:20:59.240 the right one where all six faces are all the 0:20:59.280 --> 0:21:03.280 same color. Ubi's just one. So just doing it accidentally, 0:21:03.600 --> 0:21:06.720 your chances are one in about forty three trillion that 0:21:06.760 --> 0:21:10.199 you're going to stumble upon that right combination that's right, 0:21:10.680 --> 0:21:13.640 which is pretty amazing, don't you think. Yes? And by 0:21:13.640 --> 0:21:15.920 the way, I think I said in their fifty four 0:21:16.680 --> 0:21:22.280 there's twenty cubes. I believe there's fifty four faces. Yeah, 0:21:22.280 --> 0:21:25.000 I mean that's a deal. Each QB has three sides 0:21:25.480 --> 0:21:28.119 or two sides, depending on if it's a corner or 0:21:28.160 --> 0:21:30.960 an edge or one if it's in the center right, 0:21:31.400 --> 0:21:34.960 So it's kind of confusing. But but nine times six, 0:21:35.040 --> 0:21:40.240 so nine nine squares or nine different colors squares times 0:21:40.240 --> 0:21:45.840 six faces is fifty four I think fifty four faces 0:21:45.880 --> 0:21:50.120 something qubis This is how good at Matthew Man. It's 0:21:50.200 --> 0:21:52.280 it's really because it's so funny, because it's such a 0:21:52.320 --> 0:21:54.920 simple little thing. But once you start really breaking it down, 0:21:55.000 --> 0:21:56.720 you're like, we could make this super confusing if we 0:21:56.840 --> 0:22:00.400 dried hard, for sure. But what people have figured out 0:22:00.560 --> 0:22:03.240 is that they're they're like, you may have like a 0:22:03.280 --> 0:22:06.240 one and forty three quintillion chance of stumbling across the 0:22:06.359 --> 0:22:09.200 right configuration by accident. But what people have figured out 0:22:09.240 --> 0:22:12.840 is that there are combination of moves like you know, 0:22:13.080 --> 0:22:17.720 um uh front right up, up twice and then down. 0:22:18.240 --> 0:22:20.600 That's that's an algorithm. And if you apply that to 0:22:20.720 --> 0:22:24.000 a certain kind of scrambled a certain configuration of a 0:22:24.040 --> 0:22:27.040 scrambled Rubik's cube, it will bring it back to solved. 0:22:27.359 --> 0:22:30.280 And so people have spent a lot of time developing algorithms. 0:22:30.359 --> 0:22:32.679 And that's why erno Rubik was originally doing when he 0:22:32.720 --> 0:22:34.199 was like, oh, if I do this this and this, 0:22:34.280 --> 0:22:36.000 it will make it solved. And he wrote that down 0:22:36.320 --> 0:22:39.119 that's what's called an algorithm. Yeah, and I remember in 0:22:39.160 --> 0:22:41.960 the book, like each book had their own little shorthand, 0:22:41.960 --> 0:22:45.120 I guess, but I remember the one that I had. 0:22:46.200 --> 0:22:49.199 It definitely had the algorithms all spelled out with like 0:22:49.280 --> 0:22:52.680 shorthand for what each move was called. So it would 0:22:52.720 --> 0:22:57.040 sort of look like a math problem made out of letters, right, 0:22:57.200 --> 0:22:59.480 like I saw you for up and D for down. 0:23:00.000 --> 0:23:02.879 Makes a lot of sense. But then also, um, you 0:23:02.920 --> 0:23:06.080 can you know there you can move something to the right. 0:23:06.200 --> 0:23:08.000 You can twist one of the rows of cubes to 0:23:08.040 --> 0:23:10.119 the right, but you can also twist it to the 0:23:10.200 --> 0:23:14.000 left too, So I saw an apostrophe after like l 0:23:14.200 --> 0:23:18.120 apostrophe would be counterclockwise left, and then you can add 0:23:18.119 --> 0:23:20.320 a number two, so you do that twice, which is 0:23:20.320 --> 0:23:24.800