Perhaps the secret of the success of the Rubik?s Cube is that one can play the game regardless of age, ability, language or knowledge of the puzzle, Rubik told the Bridges World Conference in the Hungarian city of Pécs.
Bridges is an annual meeting that explores the connections between mathematics and art.
Today Rubik?s Cube, which was invented in 1975, is mostly played by young people and has become a tool of rivalry among some groups, Rubik said.
?How quickly one can put the cube together depends on how many combinations one knows. To learn these takes an extraordinary amount of time and demands much energy, but when one knows these, the results improve. Thus, it is possible for the best to solve the cube in less than seven minutes,? Rubik said.
Asked about earlier plans - that were eventually scrapped - to use the cube as a teaching tool in Hungarian schools, Rubik said the puzzle has an educational function in many countries around the world, but he added it was probably more useful for pupils in higher grades, when learning about group theory.
?I would recommend playing with it to anybody who wants over the age of six,? Rubik said.
Rubik said his latest logic game, Rubik?s 360, unveiled in February of 2009, was ?selling well? but he didn?t expect it to match the success of the Rubik?s Cube.
Rubik said he was interested in computers, as a tool, but not as a game, preferring rather to deal with real objects. ?Naturally, there will be new games, but I can?t spoil the surprise,? he added.
Source: Hungarian News Agency (MTI) / Photo: MTI
