Next year will mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Rubik’s Cube, the multi-generational favorite puzzle that was created by a sculptor and architecture professor named – coincidentally – Erno Rubik. He invented it, by the way, when he was 30 years old, which means that he will be alive and kicking to see the celebrations about it. And it is difficult to do something that looks original with a pop icon that has had from its own cartoon series (which I strongly recommend you to watch to understand the expression “chicken is the best use of everything”) to a cube of 3 meters and 544 kilos.
In the blink of an eye
At the height of the Rubik’s Cube’s success in the early 1980s, when more than 200 million units were sold worldwide, the first speed championship was organized in Munich, followed by a handful of others before sales slumped in 1983 and the fad was declared over. However, in 2023 we are still talking about the cube, and how.
Max Park, a 22-year-old American boy, has smashed the world record in Long Beach: he was able to solve it in a total of 3.13 seconds, an absolutely delirious achievement, but not the only one Park has to his credit: he is arguably the world’s greatest Rubik’s Cube expert. Watch out.
His are the one-handed speed records (6.20 seconds) and absolutely all of them, both individual and an average of five, in 4, 5, 6 and 7-sided cubes. Do you know how long it takes a human machine like this to put together a 7x7x7 cube? One minute and 35 seconds. Give me a lifetime and I couldn’t do more than two faces.
However, a new rival for Park comes from China, where a 9-year-old boy has managed to beat him in the average speed test, where the cube is solved five times in a row, the fastest and shortest time is eliminated and averaged. Previously, Max held the record of 4.86 seconds, but on March 12 it was snatched away by Yiheng Wang with an average of 4.69 seconds. And you guys thought soccer was an exciting sport.
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