Tuesday, June 24, 2014

PUZZLES - 40th Anniversary of the Rubik Cube

"Rubik’s Cube’s mystique remains 40 years later" PBS NewsHour 6/22/2014

Excerpt

JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour):  It couldn’t be simpler or, for most of us, more difficult.

Twenty-six cubes designed to interlock and rotate around an axis that can be shuffled 43-quintillion ways.  (That’s 43 with 18-zeros after it.)

And yet, all Rubik’s Cubes can be solved in 20 or fewer moves.  It’s puzzled, pained, delighted and challenged millions — from young children to this robot.

PAUL HOFFMAN:  I mean, it’s industrial strength.  It normally paints cars on an assembly line, but it’s been programmed to do a Rubik’s Cube.

JEFFREY BROWN:  The robot is part of a new exhibit called ‘Beyond Rubik’s Cube,’ that opened in April, at the Liberty Science Center – across the river from Manhattan in New Jersey – to celebrate the 40th birthday of the cube.

ERNO RUBIK:  40 years is it’s a very long time.

JEFFREY BROWN:  And in a rare public appearance, inventor Erno Rubik was on hand to meet fans and talk about the impact of his work.

Rubik was a 29-year-old architecture professor in Budapest when he created the cube in 1974.  What began as a teaching tool to demonstrate spatial relations for his students grew into something that, by his own account is, well, less practical.

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