Consider: The Rubik's Cube
More than just a puzzle
Happier New Year to everyone and a big welcome to all the new subscribers. Thank you for joining us! For those readers interested in a follow-up to the story I shared two weeks ago, re: “The Champagne of Champagnes”, I’m happy to report back that over the December holidays I had the opportunity to try three different Louis Roederer releases 🍾🍾🍾. For more details on my Considered tasting experiences, check out www.twitter.com/ReadConsidered.
Spending time with kids can trigger childhood nostalgia. For me, this feeling manifests itself into an urge to rediscover objects (toys!) from my youth in the 1980s and 1990s. You can imagine how thrilled I was to discover a Rubik’s Cube in my Christmas stocking this year. After opening it and giving it a few spins, I remembered the disorienting and overwhelming feeling of not knowing how to solve it (but I will someday!). I was also immediately curious to dig into why this simple puzzle had endured for more than 40 years.
Design
As Ernő Rubik describes it, the “Cube” was “discovered” in 1974 when he was living in Budapest, Hungary and working as an architecture professor. As a lifelong fan of puzzles, he “was interested in geometry, construction, and working in three dimensions and (was) looking for a tool to explain 3D transformations” to his students. He wondered if he could create a solid object that was moveable but still held together.
After tinkering on prototypes, Rubik came up with a 2x2x2 wooden model that was held together with paper clips and elastic bands. He evolved the design into a wooden 3x3x3 model that, after being constructed and then scrambled, took him a month (a month!) to figure out how to solve it back to its original state. By 1977, the design was refined and its production commercialized in Hungary, where it was marketed as The Magic Cube.
In 1979, Rubik secured a global distribution deal with The Ideal Toy Company (founded by the creators of the original Teddy Bear) and by 1983 the cube’s popularity had exploded, with over 100 million units being sold in the first few years of international availability. Although the cube’s popularity waned from the initial hype, it has remained a steady seller, and has experienced a resurgence. The recent increase in popularity has been driven by its adoption as a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) teaching tool, as well as by superfan communities built around “speedcubing” (where people compete to see who can solve a cube the fastest), especially through social media channels like YouTube. In all, over 400 million units have been sold (plus millions of “unauthorized” versions), making it one of the best selling toys of all time. Its popularity, and now iconic design, has earned it a place in both the National Toy Hall of Fame and as part of the permanent collection of The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York.
It is estimated that 1 in 7 people in the world have touched a Rubik’s Cube. According to Rubik, the cube is “really international, not connected with any culture, any religion, any specific way of thinking… that is the reason it is very big.” Part of the magic is that it appears simple but has a complex mechanism and is even more complex to solve. Despite having more than 43 quintillion (43,252,003,274,489,856,000) possibilities there is only ONE solution!
Innovation
Rubik’s ingenuity built upon a long history of wooden puzzles like the two dimensional Tangrams or variations of the three dimensional Burr puzzles. However, what Rubik achieved in the design of the mechanism for the movement in his 3D puzzle is very complex and novel. In the above diagram and below animation you can see the components that make up the cube: a fixed core with X, Y and Z axes extending to hold the six face’s centre pieces, and 12 edge pieces (2 faces/colours) and 8 corner pieces (3 faces/colours) that interlock and move together.
The Rubik’s Cube has become both a symbol for figuring out complex problems and a tool for testing new technologies. Over 5,000 scientific research papers have referenced or have directly used the Rubik’s Cube in their research, covering topics like robotics and artificial intelligence. It has become the new Chess.
If you are looking to go deep on the potential scientific applications of the principles of a Rubik’s Cube (why not?!), there’s a detailed, but short and very readable, research paper from the Chinese Journal of Mechanical Engineering, titled: Overview of Rubik’s Cube and Reflections on Its Application in Mechanism.
Sustainability
Even though the original Rubik’s Cube prototypes were made out of wood, they were commercialized and mass produced with (and packaged in) plastic. As has been common over the past 50 years, plastic won out for its favourable costs (raw material and manufacturing) as well as its improved functionality (lighter and more durable). What is missed in this trade-off calculation is the potential environmental cost of the production of the raw materials, particularly the petrochemical based ones in a Rubik’s Cube, like ABS (Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene) plastic, which is also used for making Lego.
I found it interesting that the company has a corporate “promotion” (swag) sales channel that offers cubes made from “pre-consumer recycled plastics'' and a recycled paper packaging option. Also, the company recently created a limited edition cube made out of wood. So, it appears it is possible for the cubes to be made more sustainably, but perhaps at an increased cost.
In October of 2020, Rubik’s Cube was acquired for ~$50 million by a publicly traded Canadian toy company called Spin Master Corp (owners of PAW Patrol, GUND and Etch A Sketch). As a public company, Spin Master has published a Corporate Responsibility Report (2019) that addresses topics including: sustainable product materials, packaging and waste. I’m keen to see if being owned by a public company with increased levels of sustainability disclosure will result in the Rubik’s Cube brand revealing more about their sustainability practices. I emailed Spin Master’s media relations department and asked for any disclosure, re: the sustainability of the Rubik’s Cube, but at the time of this missive being sent out, I have not heard back.
On the internet, there is an abundance of metaphors and life / business philosophies inspired by the Rubik’s Cube, including: (Dental) Practice Management Lessons From Rubik’s Cube! However, what really struck me was an argument that “Cubing” can be a very sustainable hobby. “Cubing” refers to the mastery of the Rubik’s Cube beyond just “solving” it once, but by doing so in the minimum amount of time (or movements), or by doing it one handed, or blindfolded… or while hula hooping… or while juggling. Seriously, it’s worth 3 min to watch the video of the juggling cuber 👀 . If you think about it, for under $10 you can be challenged for hours or for a lifetime! No additional equipment, materials or travelling required. Ok, except for maybe a bit of cube lube.
Value
In the early 1980s, the Rubik’s Cube retailed for ~$1.99 USD (approximately equal to $6.25 in 2020, adjusted for inflation). At the time, the cost was just less than a Big Mac meal (~$2.50) and less than 10% of the price of a Cabbage Patch Kid doll (~$30). Today the standard Amazon.com listing for a 3x3x3 cube is $7.99, with knock-offs selling for under $5, and bluetooth and smartphone linked cubes can retail for around $60.00. Compared to a modern video gaming console that can retail for hundreds of dollars, or even any other puzzle or toy, a Rubik’s Cube is tough to beat for cost per hour of use!
Thanks again for making it to the end of this week’s newsletter! As a treat, I hope you enjoy this wild kids cartoon from 1983: Rubik, the Amazing Cube. If for some reason you don’t have 20min to take in the whole episode, I hope you at least enjoy the theme song sequence sung by the 1980’s Puerto Rican boy band Menudo.
Footnote
In the articles I reviewed to prepare this week’s note, I really enjoyed Professor Rubik’s poetic reflections on puzzles, humanity, learning, and the enduring appeal of the Rubik’s Cube. Here are a few of my favourites:
“Puzzles are not just entertainment or devices for killing time. For us, as for our ancestors, they help point the way to our creative potential. If you are curious, you will find the puzzles around you. If you are determined, you will solve them.”
“What is it about human nature that allows for the luxury of spending so much time and energy figuring out a seemingly impossible challenge, when the reward is nothing more than the solution itself?”
“The Cube has become a universal symbol of everything I believe education should be about: fostering curiosity, the rewards of problem-solving, and the joys of finding your own solution.”
“It is a curious fact — one that surprises me as much as anyone — that for so many decades during a time of an unprecedented technological revolution, fascination with such a simple low-tech object has survived,"
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my 8 year old is obsessed with cubes and he has a collection of about 20 varieties from 4x4's, 2x2's to pyramids and even a 'mirror cube' which blows my mind when he solves it. Between the cubes and his piano playing, he's become a master of algorithms long before he has any clue how they are applied in the real world or computer science.