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Posted May 19, 2014 by Mikael Angelo Francisco in Gaming
 
 

Today’s Google Doodle: An Interactive Rubik’s Cube!

If you were planning to get a good head start on this week’s workload, visiting Google might not be the best way to do it.

In celebration of the 40th anniversary of one of the world’s most unique, entertaining, and addicting playthings, Google’s homepage features an interactive (and solvable) 3D model of the Rubik’s Cube.

By clicking on the Doodle, users can zoom in on the cube and attempt to solve it by dragging the rows and columns left, right, up, or down. The model may also be rotated with the mouse, allowing the player to check if all six faces of the cube consist of a single color each – blue, red, white, green, yellow, or orange. To make things more challenging and exciting, a move counter is located on the lower left side of the screen, keeping track of the number of moves the player has made so far.

A colorful side of history

The Rubik’s Cube, originally known as the Magic Cube, was invented in 1974 by Erno Rubik, a Hungarian sculptor and architect. The cube was eventually licensed to Ideal Toy Corp in 1980. The puzzle game now enjoys the distinction of being the world’s highest-selling puzzle game – and possibly the world’s best-selling toy – with an estimated 350 million cubes sold worldwide.

Erno, who served as a professor of architecture at the Budapest College of Applied Arts, came up with the design for the cube because he was “searching for a good task for [his] students.”

“When you are studying from a book, lots of people go straight to the end to look for the answers,” said Erno. “For me, the most enjoyable part is the puzzle, the process of solving, not the solution itself.”

Oh, and by the way, the cube has over 43 quintillion permutations – good luck with trying to have a productive Monday.


Mikael Angelo Francisco