The new Rubik's 360 toy is spherical, unlike the original Rubik's Cube, but one should not underestimate the degree of difficulty in solving the puzzle. The purpose is to move the six interior balls from the central sphere so they will eventually be located in the six compartments on the outer sphere. The solution becomes even more difficult with only two holes in the middle sphere for the balls to flow through. The Rubik's 360 toy is expected to be available in the United States in July and can be seen and purchased here.
History of the Rubik's Cube
The original Rubik's Cube is a 3-Dimensional mechanical puzzle that was originally invented in the 1970’s by Erno Rubik, a Hungarian sculptor and professor of Architecture. The Rubik's Cube was sold by Ideal Toys in 1980 and as of January of 2009, 350 million cubes had sold worldwide, making it the world’s top selling puzzle game.
Rubik's Cube Math
In Rubik cubists' parlance, a memorized sequence of moves that has a desired effect on the cube is called an algorithm. This terminology is derived from the mathematical use of algorithm, meaning a list of well-defined instructions for performing a task from a given initial state, through well-defined successive states, to a desired end-state.
There are exactly 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 possibilities of cube solving, which is approximately forty-three quintillion. The full number is 519,024,039,293,878,272,000 or 519 quintillion possible arrangements of the pieces that make up the Rubik's Cube solving, but only one in twelve of these are actually solvable. Many solutions have been published, one being Fridrich's Solution , which requires learning roughly 120 algorithms but allows the Rubik's Cube to be solved in only 55 moves on average.
Cube World Competitions and Championship
Speedcubing competitions, the practice of trying to solve a Rubik's Cube in the shortest time possible, are held around the world. The first world championship was held in Munich on March 13, 1981. The official winner had a record of 38 seconds. The first international world championship of speedcubing competitions was held in Budapest on June 5, 1982 and the winning time was 22.95 seconds. As of February, 2009, Dan Cohen holds the world record (single) time of 2:56.34 with a 6X6 Rubik's Cube. There is also a record of a three year old Chinese girl that solved the Cube in 114 seconds!
In addition, World Competitions have been held which invite participants to solve the Rubik's Cube in unusual situations:
- Blindfolded solving
- Team Blindfold (the person holding the cube is blindfolded with a partner not blindfolded telling the moves to make)
- Underwater in one breath
- Using a single hand
- Using one’s feet
The World Cube Association sanctions blindfolded solving, one-handed solving and feet solving as official world competition events for the Rubik's Cube. Since 2003, competitions are decided by the best average (middle three of five attempts), but the single best times of all tries are also recorded. The official Speedcubing site references news and links to world speedcubing competition events. The records of the Rubik 360 world competitions should be forthcoming later this year.
Internet Rubik's Cube Games
The Rubik's Cube can be reproduced by computer software, which provide functions of recording moves, storing cube positions, conducting online competitions and can also simulate large puzzles impractical to build. The online site of Rubik’s Revolution is a great place to test skills and enhance performance techniques.
With the introduction of the Rubik's 360, Erno Rubik has not changed over the years. He is still very much engaged in creating new games and mathematical puzzles that carries the stamp of the genius who created the greatest three dimensional puzzle the world has ever know.
