RUBIKS CUBE: weird puzzle game

Rubik's Cube is a mechanical puzzle invented in 1974 by the Hungarian sculptor and inventor Erne Rubik.

Erno Rubik called his invention the Magic Cube, but in 1980 Ideal Toys renamed the puzzle after the inventor and won the German Game of the Year award that same year. More than 300,000,000 copies of the toy have already been sold worldwide.

Combinatorics

A regular Rubik's Cube (3×3×3) can have (8! × 38−1) × (12! × 212−1)/2 = 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 different positions (combinations), or about 4.3 × 1019. Despite such a huge number of combinations of states, any Rubik's cube can be solved in no more than 20 moves.

For comparison, if you lay out all the combinations of the Rubik's cube end to end along one line, the length of this line will be 261 light years.

There are (8! × 38) × (12! × 212) = 519,024,039,293,878,272,000 possible placements of the cube's elements, but only one in twelve can be obtained in practice. The reason for this is that it is not possible to move the side elements. Hence, there are 12 possible sets of achievable configurations, also called orbits.

Interesting facts about the Rubik's cube:

- In 1974, the Hungarian sculptor and architecture teacher Erne Rubik invented his puzzle - the Rubik's cube, and patented it the following year.

- During this time, the Rubik's cube became the leader in terms of the number of copies sold - more than 350 million pieces.

- The algorithm for solving the Rubik's cube in the least number of moves was called "God's algorithm." Mathematician Toma Rokytsky using advanced computer calculations in 2008 proved that for this it is necessary to make 22 moves, and in July 2010 a team of researchers, which included Rokytsky, in cooperation with the Google company, proved that with certain initial combinations for assembling a cube it may only take 20 moves.

- The classic Rubik's cube has 3×3×3 squares, and the largest is 22×22×22.

- People who deal with the speed of assembling a Rubik's cube are called speedcubers. Currently, the official world record for building a cube on the first try is 3.47 seconds.

- Oddly enough, competitions are held in several nominations: collecting with two hands or one, with closed eyes, as well as under water in one breath.

- Brazilian Gabriel Pereira Campagna completed the Rubik's Cube with his feet in 25.14 seconds.

- In 1980, when the puzzle was as popular as possible, it was played by every fifth inhabitant of our planet.

- The standard side size of the Rubik's cube is 57 mm.

- On YouTube you can find almost 40 thousand videos related to this puzzle.

- As of today, it is believed that the longest is the assembly of the Rubik's cube for 26 years. Such a term was needed by the British Graham Parker, who received the toy as a gift at the age of 19, and finished assembling at the age of 47.