WEBVTT - The Rubik's Cube Episode 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:03.400 Welcome to Stuff. You should know, a production of My 0:00:03.600 --> 0:00:12.760 Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, You'm welcome to the podcast. 0:00:12.840 --> 0:00:15.840 I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, Jerry's 0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:19.640 over there, and we're cubing it up with Rubic the Cube. 0:00:20.200 --> 0:00:24.120 Did you see um that cartoon, Rubic the Amazing Cube? 0:00:24.120 --> 0:00:28.360 Did you come across that? Okay? I I feel like 0:00:28.560 --> 0:00:31.040 we are um well within our rights as far as 0:00:31.080 --> 0:00:33.880 fair use goes, since we are talking about this, to 0:00:34.000 --> 0:00:39.120 at least play the highly disturbing but also strangely cute 0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:42.600 voice of Rubic the Amazing Cube. Can I play this 0:00:42.640 --> 0:00:50.680 real quick? Sure? Okay? That is it. It is awfully unusual, 0:00:50.760 --> 0:00:54.200 especially when you see this cube. They just basically took it. 0:00:54.480 --> 0:00:57.760 Do you remember the Goblin face on Maximum Overdrive on 0:00:57.840 --> 0:01:01.400 that on the front of that semi sort of it's 0:01:01.480 --> 0:01:03.600 kind of like a cuter version of that that they 0:01:03.640 --> 0:01:06.319 put onto a Rubik's Cube, put some feed on it, 0:01:06.360 --> 0:01:09.520 and then gave it superpowers. That's Rubic the Amazing Cube. 0:01:11.440 --> 0:01:13.120 Before we go any further, Chuck, I just want to 0:01:13.120 --> 0:01:17.080 give a shout out for my Chicago show. May I. Yes, 0:01:17.640 --> 0:01:20.560 I'm doing a solo End of the World Live show 0:01:20.800 --> 0:01:24.160 in Chicago on September twelve at Lincoln Hall and if 0:01:24.200 --> 0:01:30.400 you want tickets, go to l h hyphen st dot com. Okay, okay, 0:01:30.600 --> 0:01:33.520 So back to rubic Chuck. Yeah, it was kind of 0:01:33.560 --> 0:01:35.640 hard to believe that it took until two thousand fourteen 0:01:35.720 --> 0:01:39.080 for this thing to be granted National Toy Hall of 0:01:39.080 --> 0:01:43.160 Fame inductee status. Uh. It seems like it would have 0:01:43.160 --> 0:01:47.600 been much sooner than that because they have sold hundreds 0:01:47.640 --> 0:01:52.400 and hundreds of millions of Rubik's Cube since I had one. 0:01:52.640 --> 0:01:55.880 I still have one. I could do it at one point. 0:01:57.040 --> 0:01:59.120 Oh really, Yeah, I could do it in a couple 0:01:59.120 --> 0:02:02.880 of minutes. Wow, Chuck, I'm impressed. I had no idea. Yeah, 0:02:02.960 --> 0:02:06.280 I can still do. I can still do one side 0:02:06.440 --> 0:02:10.440 and like the top row surrounding that side on all sides, 0:02:10.880 --> 0:02:14.480 And that's where I completely forget. Oh, I see, So 0:02:14.600 --> 0:02:16.480 you couldn't do it in a couple of minutes now 0:02:16.560 --> 0:02:19.400 you just have you could in the past. Yeah, when 0:02:19.400 --> 0:02:24.880 I was nine. Um, I'm impressed. I've never been able 0:02:24.880 --> 0:02:28.840 to solve a Rubik's Cube. I've never been sucked in 0:02:29.000 --> 0:02:33.640 enough to, um like really spend a significant amount of time. 0:02:34.200 --> 0:02:38.360 But um I was playing with my niece's Rubik's Cube 0:02:38.400 --> 0:02:44.079 the other day studying for this, and um I was like, yeah, 0:02:44.120 --> 0:02:46.440 I could see how somebody would become obsessed with this 0:02:46.520 --> 0:02:48.600 kind of thing for sure. Yeah, it was fun and 0:02:48.639 --> 0:02:50.919 it was you know, to call it all the rage 0:02:51.040 --> 0:02:54.520 is an understatement. It was one of the most popular 0:02:54.560 --> 0:02:59.800 toys of all time, invented in nine by a math 0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:05.560 enthusiast and Hungary and architect professor named er No Rubik. 0:03:06.320 --> 0:03:09.960 Appropriately enough, they named him after the cube. That's right. 0:03:10.040 --> 0:03:13.560 And if you don't know what we're talking about, it 0:03:13.560 --> 0:03:16.519 seems weird to describe a Rubik's Cube, but we'll probably 0:03:16.520 --> 0:03:19.640 be taking a task if we do not. I would say, 0:03:19.800 --> 0:03:22.080 just come out from under the rock that you've been 0:03:22.120 --> 0:03:24.760 living under. But we may have some young listeners who 0:03:24.919 --> 0:03:27.520 don't even know what this thing is, this piece of 0:03:27.560 --> 0:03:30.079 eighties ephemera, even though it's not ephemera because they're still 0:03:30.080 --> 0:03:33.560 pretty popular. But it is a cube made up of 0:03:33.600 --> 0:03:37.840 twenty six little mini cubes called cubs, which is kind 0:03:37.880 --> 0:03:39.840 of a cute little name. I think, so not as 0:03:39.880 --> 0:03:43.680 cute as Rubic the Amazing Cube, but yeah, little cubs 0:03:44.360 --> 0:03:46.880 and they're in a three inch by three inch by 0:03:46.920 --> 0:03:49.880 three inch. Well that's not quite true, a three by 0:03:49.920 --> 0:03:53.760 three by three grid eventually creating a cube that measures 0:03:54.320 --> 0:03:57.360 two point two five inches or five point seven centimeters 0:03:57.440 --> 0:04:01.640 per side. Right, And so what there's six six cube 0:04:01.640 --> 0:04:04.880 faces because it's a cube, and each face has a 0:04:04.920 --> 0:04:10.320 different color. There's orange, blue, green, yellow, white, and red 0:04:11.400 --> 0:04:15.080 and um. When you when you mix these things up, 0:04:15.520 --> 0:04:18.279 it's just a jumble, a riot of different colors like 0:04:18.320 --> 0:04:20.560 you've never seen your life. But the point is to 0:04:21.120 --> 0:04:25.440 move these cubes around through the eighteen different ways you 0:04:25.440 --> 0:04:29.279 can move any given cube, um, so that all of 0:04:29.320 --> 0:04:33.000 the colors are lined up, all the colored cubes are 0:04:33.040 --> 0:04:36.760 all the same on each face. And it sounds easy, friends, 0:04:37.320 --> 0:04:40.560 it is not easy, not at all. Like maybe for 0:04:40.640 --> 0:04:42.680 some people it's easy, but for the rest of us, 0:04:42.720 --> 0:04:46.680 normal focus normis, it is not easy in any way, 0:04:46.680 --> 0:04:50.200 shape or form. No, it is not. Uh And in fact, 0:04:50.279 --> 0:04:53.320 they even suggest that you read about how to solve 0:04:53.360 --> 0:04:56.680 the Rubik's cube. It is the very rare individual that 0:04:56.760 --> 0:05:01.280 can literally just figure it out without any help at all. Um, 0:05:01.520 --> 0:05:03.960 that's really tough to do. So it's not like you're 0:05:04.000 --> 0:05:05.960 not a cheat. If you look at like how to 0:05:06.000 --> 0:05:09.360 solve the Rubik's cube and then memorize these patterns and 0:05:09.600 --> 0:05:12.479 practice them. That's sort of the point, right, Yeah, like 0:05:12.560 --> 0:05:15.080 go look it up like it's fine. No one will 0:05:15.120 --> 0:05:16.880 will get mad at you for that, because it's no 0:05:16.960 --> 0:05:19.440 fun to never solve a puzzle. Well, that's why I 0:05:19.480 --> 0:05:21.320 think I've never gotten sucked in. I was like, I'm 0:05:21.360 --> 0:05:24.960 not even there's no way I'm gonna possibly stumble across this, 0:05:25.040 --> 0:05:28.760 and I just don't think like this. My spatial reasoning 0:05:28.839 --> 0:05:32.320 is terrible. I'm not great at math. I'm color blind. 0:05:32.360 --> 0:05:37.279 Everything just looks white. No, it's really not. I can't 0:05:37.320 --> 0:05:44.400 discern squares from from circles. It's just I'm off. So um. Originally, 0:05:45.080 --> 0:05:48.200 the Rubik's cube was called the magic cube, and it 0:05:48.279 --> 0:05:51.240 was invented, like you said, by Erno Rubik, who was Hungarian. 0:05:51.320 --> 0:05:54.680 So it was originally called the Beavish Kotzka, which is 0:05:55.800 --> 0:06:00.320 magic cubean the Hungarian means butt head. I believe it does. 0:06:00.360 --> 0:06:04.599 The magic butt head was Bevis and butt head a right, 0:06:05.080 --> 0:06:07.600 nice man. It's like, where's he going with this after 0:06:07.640 --> 0:06:12.440 all these years? It's no, I didn't, but I was like, 0:06:12.520 --> 0:06:15.920 I'm I'm going with this will Chuck. I trust him 0:06:16.000 --> 0:06:20.320 and I paid off to So Mr Rubik got his 0:06:20.480 --> 0:06:26.000 Hungarian patent on the mechanical design of this in and 0:06:26.160 --> 0:06:29.480 it was in Hungary only for a while. Uh, and 0:06:29.520 --> 0:06:32.080 it did pretty well and hungry. Um, but that's kind 0:06:32.120 --> 0:06:35.000 of where it stayed. It was. Uh. It was because 0:06:35.040 --> 0:06:37.480 of the politics of the time and the fact that 0:06:37.520 --> 0:06:39.920 it was hungry. It was not super easy to get 0:06:40.000 --> 0:06:43.240 a an American patent or to bring it over and 0:06:43.320 --> 0:06:45.719 market it here in the West, so it was pretty 0:06:45.760 --> 0:06:50.279 much a Hungarian local sensation for its early like probably 0:06:50.320 --> 0:06:54.880 first year. Yeah, he had like a Hungarian toy manufacturer 0:06:54.960 --> 0:06:57.279 make like ten thousand of them, but he wasn't happy 0:06:57.320 --> 0:06:59.880 with him, so we cut the run off at five thousand. 0:07:00.160 --> 0:07:02.320 So there were five thousands of these things floating around 0:07:02.320 --> 0:07:05.520 Budapest and and maybe Hungry in general. And it was 0:07:05.600 --> 0:07:09.680 just total serendipity that there was a guy named Tibor Laxi. 0:07:10.200 --> 0:07:12.320 And I'm quite sure that's not exactly how you say 0:07:12.360 --> 0:07:14.400 his last name, but that's how it's how it spelled. 0:07:14.440 --> 0:07:18.040 It's probably like Lucia or something like that. But um, 0:07:18.080 --> 0:07:20.560 t Bor, I'm I just love that name. It's a 0:07:20.560 --> 0:07:24.040 great name. Um. He was an entrepreneur who had left 0:07:24.120 --> 0:07:27.520 Hungry and moved to Austria, so he had really developed 0:07:27.520 --> 0:07:30.240 a taste for capitalism. While he happened to be visiting 0:07:30.280 --> 0:07:33.000 back home in Budapest when he was at a restaurant 0:07:33.000 --> 0:07:36.360 and he noticed a waiter playing with the Beavish kotska, 0:07:36.400 --> 0:07:40.800 the magic cube, and um, he said, you there, what 0:07:41.000 --> 0:07:44.200 is that? And uh, he said, well, it's the Beavish kotzka. 0:07:44.880 --> 0:07:47.000 How about I sell it to you for a dollar? 0:07:47.200 --> 0:07:49.760 And I believe he bought that for a dollar, played 0:07:49.760 --> 0:07:51.360 around with it for a minute. It was like this 0:07:51.560 --> 0:07:53.880 could be big. So he found out who invented it, 0:07:54.080 --> 0:07:57.640 and he scheduled a meeting with Erno Rubic. Yeah, and 0:07:57.680 --> 0:08:01.080 he would say later on that he that Erno Rubik 0:08:01.160 --> 0:08:02.800 had a lot to do with why he decided to 0:08:02.840 --> 0:08:05.880 get into business with him. And here's his quote. He said, 0:08:05.920 --> 0:08:08.640 when Rubik first walked into the room, I felt like 0:08:08.640 --> 0:08:10.960 giving him some money. He looked like a beggar. He 0:08:11.000 --> 0:08:14.000 was terribly dressed. You gotta remember this guy as a professor, 0:08:14.080 --> 0:08:17.480 so they're not known for their sharp attire. He was 0:08:17.600 --> 0:08:20.440 terribly dressed and he had a cheap Hungarian cigarette hanging 0:08:20.480 --> 0:08:22.680 out of his mouth. But I knew I had a 0:08:22.720 --> 0:08:26.000 genius on my hands, and I told him we could 0:08:26.000 --> 0:08:30.200 sell millions. Yeah he was right. Oh man, was he 0:08:30.240 --> 0:08:36.000 ever right? He understated it actually, um the t Boar, 0:08:36.120 --> 0:08:39.400 I'm just gonna call him t Boar. He took this 0:08:39.880 --> 0:08:44.560 magic cube and he started going to toy fairs, uh, 0:08:44.600 --> 0:08:46.880 and I think he struck out at a few of them. 0:08:46.960 --> 0:08:48.920 But he really hit it out of the park at 0:08:48.960 --> 0:08:52.240 the Nuremberg Toy Fair when he met a toy expert 0:08:52.600 --> 0:08:56.559 who had connections with Ideal Toy Company. Remember Ideal back 0:08:56.600 --> 0:09:00.800 in the day. I think I do for sure. I'm 0:09:00.800 --> 0:09:05.200 pretty sure they made that um the uh the uh 0:09:05.640 --> 0:09:09.520 what was the daredevil's name, Evil Kin? I think they 0:09:09.520 --> 0:09:12.600 made the Evil kinevil stunt bike. You know what's funny 0:09:12.720 --> 0:09:16.439 is um they make those now for other they have 0:09:16.679 --> 0:09:22.320 there's like an incredible stunt bike with plastic girl. It's 0:09:22.360 --> 0:09:24.240 the same exact function. We have one in our house 0:09:24.240 --> 0:09:26.840 and you load it up and crank it and there 0:09:26.880 --> 0:09:29.560 she goes. Is it the exact same mold? They just 0:09:29.600 --> 0:09:31.640 put like different pain on it or something like that. 0:09:32.280 --> 0:09:35.800 Knockoff toys. Man, it's slightly different, uh in its design, 0:09:35.920 --> 0:09:38.680 but it's clearly like the same exact toy. Do you 0:09:38.720 --> 0:09:41.800 remember that gallery of knockoff toys I made back when 0:09:41.800 --> 0:09:44.480 we used to blog those. I think it's still up 0:09:44.520 --> 0:09:47.040 somewhere on our stuff. You should remember how excited we 0:09:47.040 --> 0:09:50.760 would get about gallery page views. Yeah, oh, we'd be like, 0:09:50.880 --> 0:09:54.400 holy cow, we're up to seventy and it's only been 0:09:54.480 --> 0:09:57.200 up for a week and a half. So funny. So 0:09:57.360 --> 0:10:00.760 at the Nuremberg Toy Fair, uh t boor runs into 0:10:01.160 --> 0:10:04.920 the guy from Ideal and they end up purchasing it. 0:10:04.960 --> 0:10:07.719 They purchased the rights to this, the global rights, and 0:10:07.800 --> 0:10:11.720 they they they basically sign up to create a million 0:10:12.080 --> 0:10:15.160 Rubik's cubes. Yeah. Also we should say it this toy fair, 0:10:15.240 --> 0:10:17.360 he did a pretty smart thing. Instead of like buying 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:20.440 a booth, he just came and worked the floor with 0:10:20.520 --> 0:10:23.920 Rubik's cubes and got this like ground buzz going by 0:10:24.000 --> 0:10:27.199 walking around and giving these things to people, and like 0:10:27.480 --> 0:10:30.480 that's genius. Like for something like this, that's the perfect 0:10:30.520 --> 0:10:33.400 way to pique someone's curiosity is not to have some 0:10:33.480 --> 0:10:38.360 flashy uh like spinning giant Rubik's cube, is to actually 0:10:38.360 --> 0:10:40.679 get in the hands of people walking around the floor, 0:10:41.600 --> 0:10:46.160 especially if you say, I'm Tibor Let's party. I bet 0:10:46.160 --> 0:10:47.720 you want to call it t boards Cube. It's pretty 0:10:47.720 --> 0:10:50.199 good name. He probably did, although he was smart because 0:10:50.200 --> 0:10:54.120 I remember originally it was called the Magic Cube. At 0:10:54.160 --> 0:10:56.480 some point. If it wasn't t Boor, it was Ideal 0:10:56.880 --> 0:10:59.760 who said we're gonna rename this the Rubik's Cube. And 0:10:59.800 --> 0:11:03.000 I'm sure Erno Rubik was like, oh, okay, I guess 0:11:03.000 --> 0:11:04.880 if you insist. I wonder if he was into it 0:11:04.960 --> 0:11:06.400 or not, or if he pushed forward, or if he 0:11:06.480 --> 0:11:08.480 was like, I'm not really into that, but if you 0:11:08.480 --> 0:11:11.720 think it'll sell cubes, that's what I'm guessing he probably did. 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:13.600 I don't think he was going to stand in the 0:11:13.640 --> 0:11:16.000 way of it, but he was not like vying for 0:11:16.080 --> 0:11:19.000 it by any means. That's my impression. But I'm just 0:11:19.040 --> 0:11:21.880 totally making that up, but that I have the same impression, 0:11:21.880 --> 0:11:24.000 which means that if you put our two impressions together, 0:11:24.080 --> 0:11:31.480 it equals fact. So Ideal sells one hundred million Rubik's 0:11:31.520 --> 0:11:35.640 cubes in the first two years. They just signed up 0:11:35.640 --> 0:11:39.040 to sell one million. They sold a hundred million in 0:11:39.080 --> 0:11:41.400 two years. Yeah, I mean, I'm sure they had problems 0:11:41.440 --> 0:11:44.599 keeping up with production. Uh, some of the accolades, and 0:11:44.679 --> 0:11:46.600 eight and eighty one at won the UK's Toy the 0:11:46.679 --> 0:11:50.079 Year Award two years running. Um In eighty two, there 0:11:50.080 --> 0:11:53.000 were five books about solving it on the New York 0:11:53.000 --> 0:11:56.320 Times bestseller list, one of which I owned. I owned 0:11:57.360 --> 0:12:00.400 the classic, The Simple Solution to the Rubics Cube by 0:12:00.480 --> 0:12:03.520 James G. Norris Q. He was a chemistry student at 0:12:03.520 --> 0:12:08.600 Stanford And get this, dude, this book was the number 0:12:08.640 --> 0:12:14.280 one best selling book of night period. He sold six 0:12:14.320 --> 0:12:18.240 point seven million books and it is still the fasting 0:12:18.240 --> 0:12:21.280 selling book in the history of Bantam Books. Is that right? 0:12:22.080 --> 0:12:24.240 Can you believe that out of all the books that year, 0:12:24.360 --> 0:12:26.880 that was the number one? I can, because that really 0:12:27.080 --> 0:12:32.400 kind of underscores just how nuts the not just America, 0:12:32.520 --> 0:12:35.880 the world went for Rubicks cube. That the number one 0:12:35.920 --> 0:12:39.400 selling book was a book about solving the toy. That 0:12:39.520 --> 0:12:41.920 that that was it. Yeah, they had sold five hundred 0:12:42.000 --> 0:12:45.600 million of them by the time rolled around. So so 0:12:45.720 --> 0:12:47.880 talking about the books though for another second. At one 0:12:47.960 --> 0:12:50.920 point the number one, two, and four positions on the 0:12:50.960 --> 0:12:54.440 New York Times bestseller list where all Rubik's Cube Solution books. 0:12:54.520 --> 0:12:57.600 Three he was probably Stephen King or something, probably and 0:12:57.960 --> 0:13:00.040 one of those books was written by a twelve of 0:13:00.120 --> 0:13:03.080 year old named Patrick Bossert called You Can Do the Cube, 0:13:04.400 --> 0:13:06.680 which is pretty adorable if you think about it, and 0:13:06.800 --> 0:13:09.360 Christians later made a movie called Gleaming the Cube, one 0:13:09.360 --> 0:13:11.760 of my all time favorites, which had nothing to do 0:13:11.800 --> 0:13:15.840 with Rubik's cubes. As it turns out, it was about skateboarding. Um, 0:13:16.040 --> 0:13:21.199 so there's a just a craze going on around the world, 0:13:21.280 --> 0:13:24.800 like everyone is into the Ruby's Cube. Everyone's buying one. 0:13:25.200 --> 0:13:29.160 They sold, like I've seen anywhere from three hundred and 0:13:29.160 --> 0:13:32.400 fifty million. The highest I've seen is six hundred million. 0:13:33.000 --> 0:13:35.720 They sold a ton of these things, hundreds and hundreds 0:13:35.760 --> 0:13:38.040 of millions of them. Are those are the official ones too? 0:13:38.080 --> 0:13:41.520 There were plenty of knockoffs. Sure, there was books on 0:13:41.559 --> 0:13:43.720 the New York Times bestseller list about this. It was 0:13:43.800 --> 0:13:49.000 featured in Times Scientific, American News Scientists. Um. There was 0:13:49.120 --> 0:13:52.040 a paper that was printed in the New England Journal 0:13:52.040 --> 0:13:55.280 of Medicine that talked about cubists thumb, which is a 0:13:55.320 --> 0:13:58.600 real thing. It's a type of tendonitis in your thumb 0:13:58.960 --> 0:14:03.400 that you get in your non dominant hand because that's 0:14:03.840 --> 0:14:07.400 the hand that you used to stabilize the Rubik's cube, 0:14:07.720 --> 0:14:10.040 and so the edge of the cube pressing into the 0:14:10.080 --> 0:14:12.280 heel of your thumb where it meets the rest of 0:14:12.280 --> 0:14:16.240 your thumb um, that could create tendonitis for people who 0:14:16.240 --> 0:14:20.400 were staying up for days on end just playing with 0:14:20.440 --> 0:14:23.760 this thing, trying to to beat this puzzle. There was 0:14:23.800 --> 0:14:27.000 a craze like like no other. I say, we take 0:14:27.040 --> 0:14:29.680 a break, okay, uh, and we come back and we 0:14:29.720 --> 0:14:32.920 talk about uh, Mr Rubic or maybe he's a doctor. 0:14:33.320 --> 0:14:36.160 I'm gonna call him Dr Rubic, and how he created 0:14:36.200 --> 0:15:05.680 the mechanics of this puzzle. Alright, so supposedly Dr Rubik, 0:15:06.480 --> 0:15:09.960 surely he's a doctor. I would let's call him Professor 0:15:10.040 --> 0:15:12.880 Ruby because he was definitely an architecture professor in a 0:15:12.960 --> 0:15:15.960 math genius. Though I'm I'm with he's got to be 0:15:15.960 --> 0:15:19.560 a doctor, all right, Professor Dr Rubik, uh supposedly was 0:15:19.600 --> 0:15:22.000 not even trying to create this puzzle in n I'm 0:15:22.000 --> 0:15:25.080 sorry seventy four when he first started out um, as 0:15:25.160 --> 0:15:27.200 legend has it, he was trying to create a mathematical 0:15:27.320 --> 0:15:31.400 model for three D design class, which makes sense considering 0:15:31.440 --> 0:15:34.560 his job. Other people say, no, he was just really 0:15:34.880 --> 0:15:37.320 kind of guy that like to tinker. He was fascinated 0:15:37.360 --> 0:15:40.440 by geometry and shapes, and he was trying to just 0:15:40.480 --> 0:15:45.240 solve a problem of mechanics in three dimensions. But according 0:15:45.240 --> 0:15:47.640 to the Toy Hall of Fame, he was very much 0:15:47.680 --> 0:15:50.640 trying to invent a puzzle. Uh, and that may just 0:15:50.680 --> 0:15:53.480 be folklore. Yeah, he he knew what he wanted. He 0:15:53.520 --> 0:15:56.320 wanted to make this three by three cube that was 0:15:56.360 --> 0:15:59.560 made up of smaller cubes that could all like interact 0:15:59.600 --> 0:16:01.600 in twist store around like. He had the idea for 0:16:01.600 --> 0:16:05.040 the Rubik's cube, which was step one, but step two 0:16:05.120 --> 0:16:07.720 was a doozy, and that was figuring out how to 0:16:08.000 --> 0:16:13.040 invent a mechanical solution to make this thing work the 0:16:13.080 --> 0:16:16.720 way he wanted it to. And apparently he was. Um. 0:16:17.120 --> 0:16:19.600 There was a pretty good article Mental Floss by a 0:16:19.600 --> 0:16:23.320 guy named Noah Davis who recounted that um one day 0:16:23.400 --> 0:16:27.880 Rubic was walking down the Danube alongside the Danube in 0:16:27.920 --> 0:16:31.120 Budapest and looked down and noticed that there was just 0:16:31.200 --> 0:16:35.240 a pile of nice, polished rounded river rocks and thought, 0:16:35.880 --> 0:16:39.320 I've got it. I've been thinking about a cube. Everything's 0:16:39.360 --> 0:16:41.480 got to be a cube. But what if I added 0:16:41.520 --> 0:16:44.320 a sphere to the mix? Two? And that these things 0:16:44.440 --> 0:16:46.880 rotated around us. Fear that would give the freedom of 0:16:46.960 --> 0:16:50.240 motion that I need to make this thing work. And 0:16:50.360 --> 0:16:53.280 that was that that that that was the solution to 0:16:53.320 --> 0:16:55.720 the puzzle, as it were. Yeah, I mean, if you're 0:16:55.760 --> 0:16:57.960 like me and probably lots of other kids in the 0:16:57.960 --> 0:17:00.880 early eighties, you took your rubiscube apart at some point, 0:17:01.200 --> 0:17:04.119 did you? I never, I never saw one. Lots of 0:17:04.240 --> 0:17:06.400 video on this. Yeah. Oh yeah, I've got a screw 0:17:06.520 --> 0:17:10.160 driver out in pretty short order and pomp those things apart. Uh. 0:17:10.160 --> 0:17:11.679 And it's kind of cool when you look at the 0:17:12.000 --> 0:17:14.119 you know, when you take all those cubs out, you 0:17:14.119 --> 0:17:16.960 get down to the center and those three x s 0:17:17.720 --> 0:17:20.280 um and they have each one is tipped with two 0:17:20.280 --> 0:17:23.040 opposing center cubis. It's kind of cool looking. And then 0:17:23.080 --> 0:17:25.959 it makes sense how all these things fit together and 0:17:25.960 --> 0:17:28.640 how it works. Yeah, another way to think about it 0:17:28.680 --> 0:17:30.959 is just think about like a sphere a ball, and 0:17:30.960 --> 0:17:34.680 then you've got six arms sticking out in in um 0:17:34.760 --> 0:17:37.040 at right angles from it, so that it forms a 0:17:37.080 --> 0:17:40.520 three dimensional plus side plus signed and at the end 0:17:40.560 --> 0:17:42.919 of each one of these arms is a cube, a 0:17:42.960 --> 0:17:47.200 colored cube. And though that's the skeleton of the thing, 0:17:47.640 --> 0:17:51.080 and then what what erno Rubik figured out was that 0:17:51.080 --> 0:17:53.399 that's all that needed to be attached to the center. 0:17:53.520 --> 0:17:56.639 You could make the other cubes attached to those those 0:17:57.040 --> 0:18:01.840 face cubes, those center cubes qubis. Um. You could make 0:18:02.320 --> 0:18:05.480 some cubes qubis attached to those cubis, and then other 0:18:05.560 --> 0:18:07.960 cubs attached to the other cubs, and then they will 0:18:08.000 --> 0:18:10.680 all kind of rotate around each other. But they're all 0:18:10.720 --> 0:18:14.080 really rotating on three different axis coming out of that sphere. 0:18:14.480 --> 0:18:18.240 It's a gene like this guy has gotten, like if 0:18:18.240 --> 0:18:20.800 he started a craze and as you know, kind of 0:18:20.880 --> 0:18:26.880 viewed as this great inventor for the toy like math, physics, architecture, 0:18:27.400 --> 0:18:30.000 um in the in a number of different fields. He's 0:18:30.040 --> 0:18:33.280 botanical engineering for sure. Yeah, he's viewed as just a 0:18:34.160 --> 0:18:38.480 god in some senses for for cracking this this problem 0:18:38.520 --> 0:18:42.760 and creating this three dimensional structure that actually works in 0:18:42.760 --> 0:18:46.240 in reality that people can learn and study from. That's right. 0:18:46.320 --> 0:18:49.200 So he's figured out this the mechanics of it all, 0:18:49.760 --> 0:18:52.160 but it's still not a puzzle yet until he applies 0:18:52.200 --> 0:18:55.560 these colors. That's what makes it a puzzle, because like 0:18:55.560 --> 0:18:57.480 we said that at the beginning, the idea is that 0:18:57.920 --> 0:18:59.760 you have all the colors on each side matching one, 0:18:59.800 --> 0:19:03.520 and there he applies these colored stickers all over mixes 0:19:03.560 --> 0:19:05.960 and twisted up a little bit, and he's like, I've 0:19:06.000 --> 0:19:08.639 invented the cube. And then he's like, wait a minute, 0:19:10.600 --> 0:19:13.000 I don't know how to solve the puzzle. So he 0:19:13.080 --> 0:19:17.200 actually had built this thing, stickered it up, and looked 0:19:17.240 --> 0:19:20.520 at it, I imagine with some level of accomplishment, and 0:19:20.560 --> 0:19:24.760 then realized that the biggest, probably uh, the hardest thing 0:19:24.760 --> 0:19:27.560 to do in this whole process, still lay in front 0:19:27.600 --> 0:19:30.040 of him, which was because there were no books out 0:19:30.200 --> 0:19:33.080 at this point. Right. He invented it, so he had 0:19:33.119 --> 0:19:36.359 to figure out how to solve his own puzzle, and 0:19:36.400 --> 0:19:39.200 it took him a while. It took him a month 0:19:39.240 --> 0:19:42.040 from what I saw, Yeah, and I imagine he worked 0:19:42.040 --> 0:19:45.399 on this pretty much NonStop to figure this thing out. 0:19:46.000 --> 0:19:48.159 He he did, and he would like write down like 0:19:48.240 --> 0:19:52.040 the different different moves, combination of moves which now they're 0:19:52.080 --> 0:19:55.520 called algorithms. Um, it's just types of moves that if 0:19:55.560 --> 0:19:58.439 you do them in a specific sequence, will solve a 0:19:58.560 --> 0:20:03.800 specific jumbled Rubik's cube. Right, Um, So he wrote them down. 0:20:03.800 --> 0:20:05.919 He kind of kept track of it, and that was 0:20:05.960 --> 0:20:09.359 like the first the first um, first time anyone had 0:20:09.560 --> 0:20:11.960 kind of applied analysis to this, but it would not 0:20:12.040 --> 0:20:15.800 be the last, obviously, is the New York Times bestseller shows. 0:20:15.840 --> 0:20:20.600 But the reason why it's so difficult to solve a 0:20:20.680 --> 0:20:25.159 Rubik's cube just by happenstance is that just the sheer 0:20:25.240 --> 0:20:30.320 number of possible configurations of the cube. Right, each face 0:20:30.520 --> 0:20:35.280 has nine cubs, and there's six um faces, so there's 0:20:35.320 --> 0:20:39.000 fifty four cubs, but they all relate to one another, 0:20:39.200 --> 0:20:41.679 and so if you move one, that's one configuration, If 0:20:41.680 --> 0:20:44.040 you move it another direction, that's another configuration, and so 0:20:44.080 --> 0:20:47.720 on and so on, and so with these fifty four cubs, Chuck, 0:20:48.280 --> 0:20:52.479 are you ready for this? Yes? The possible number of 0:20:52.520 --> 0:20:57.840 configurations is forty three quintillion, two hundred and fifty two quadrillion, 0:20:58.119 --> 0:21:01.320 three trillion, two hundred and seventy four billion, four hundred 0:21:01.359 --> 0:21:04.840 and eighty nine million, eight hundred and fifty six thousand 0:21:05.080 --> 0:21:09.919 possible configurations of a Rubri's cube. Amazing, and one of 0:21:09.960 --> 0:21:14.400 them one is the right one where all six faces 0:21:14.680 --> 0:21:17.840 are all the same color. Qubi's just one. So just 0:21:17.960 --> 0:21:21.560 doing it accidentally, your chances are one in about forty 0:21:21.600 --> 0:21:25.320 three trillion that you're going to stumble upon that right combination, 0:21:26.680 --> 0:21:29.880 which is pretty amazing, don't you think. And by the way, 0:21:29.920 --> 0:21:34.400 I think I said in their fifty four there's twenty cubes. 0:21:35.080 --> 0:21:38.680 I believe there's fifty four faces. Yeah, I mean that's 0:21:38.720 --> 0:21:42.280 a deal. Each qub has three sides or two sides, 0:21:42.880 --> 0:21:45.080 depending on if it's a corner or an edge, or 0:21:45.240 --> 0:21:47.920 one if it's in the center. Right, So it's kind 0:21:47.920 --> 0:21:52.760 of confusing. But but nine times six, so nine nine 0:21:52.920 --> 0:21:57.159 squares or nine different colors squares times six faces is 0:21:57.200 --> 0:22:02.680 fifty four I think fifty four faces twenty something cubies. 0:22:03.560 --> 0:22:06.640 This is how good at Matthew Man, It's it's really 0:22:06.640 --> 0:22:09.040 because it's so funny because it's such a simple little thing. 0:22:09.119 --> 0:22:11.240 But once you start really breaking it down, you're like, 0:22:11.280 --> 0:22:13.320 we could make this super confusing if we dried hard, 0:22:13.880 --> 0:22:16.960 for sure. But what people have figured out is that 0:22:17.119 --> 0:22:19.600 they're they're like, you may have like a one and 0:22:19.640 --> 0:22:23.240 forty three quintillion chance of stumbling across the right configuration 0:22:23.280 --> 0:22:25.480 by accident, but what people have figured out is that 0:22:25.720 --> 0:22:30.000 there are combination of moves like you know, um uh 0:22:30.160 --> 0:22:34.720 front right up, up twice and then down. That's that's 0:22:34.720 --> 0:22:37.360 an algorithm, and if you apply that to a certain 0:22:37.760 --> 0:22:41.280 kind of scrambled a certain configuration of a scrambled Rubik's cube, 0:22:41.320 --> 0:22:44.040 it will bring it back to solved. And so people 0:22:44.080 --> 0:22:46.640 have spent a lot of time developing algorithms, and that's 0:22:46.640 --> 0:22:49.159 why Erno Rubik was originally doing when he was like, oh, 0:22:49.160 --> 0:22:50.719 if I do this, this and this, it will make 0:22:50.760 --> 0:22:53.040 it solved. And he wrote that down. That's what's called 0:22:53.080 --> 0:22:55.800 an algorithm. Yeah, And I remember in the book, like 0:22:55.840 --> 0:22:59.120 each book had their own little shorthand, I guess, but 0:22:59.240 --> 0:23:02.760 I remember the one that I had. It definitely had 0:23:02.800 --> 0:23:06.399 the algorithms all spelled out with like shorthand for what 0:23:06.520 --> 0:23:09.280 each move was called. So it would sort of look 0:23:09.320 --> 0:23:13.320 like a math problem made out of letters, right, Like 0:23:13.400 --> 0:23:16.160 I saw you for up and dfer down, which makes 0:23:16.200 --> 0:23:19.200