The Hungarian who invented the “Búvös Kocka” or “magic cube”, Ernő Rubik, turned 80 on July 13. A device he invented to help architecture students work in three dimensions has become the world's most recognisable toy. 

As a Hungarian, Rubik belongs to a people who have been forced by circumstances to be creative. Hungary has given the world a great many inventions, starting in the Middle Ages, such as the cavalry saddle and the wagon named after the town it was built in, Kócs. (The name is still found in derivatives such as English “coach”, Spanish and French “coche” (car) and German “Kutsche”).

As the country was often attacked, many military terms are Hungarian in origin, such as  “hussar”, “sabre” and “shako”. In more recent times, Hungarian inventions include the safety match, clean maternity wards and vitamin C in medicine. Also the word “hello”, the Bi(ró) Company (BiC) ballpoint pen (patent filed in 1938), the first passive radar, and colour television. Hungary has a very large number of Nobel Prize winners, just two in 2023 alone.

Back to Ernő Rubik. He is also an award-winning sculptor and among many honours he has been titled “The Nation’s Artist”, as he is an architect, designer, interior designer, toy designer and university professor.

Rubik’s father, also named Ernő, was a famous aeronautical engineer. One of the Hungarian Air Force’s units, a helicopter transport group based in Szolnok, is named after him. His mother, Magdolna Szántó, was a poet and pianist. Rubik is married to Ágnes Hegely, and they have four children: Ernő Zoltán, Ágnes, Anna and Szonja. The third Ernő is a composer and jazz pianist.

Despite many difficulties, Rubik’s life was much easier than that of many living on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain. He was able to study and after completing school, enrolled in the Budapest Technical University, where he graduated as an architect in 1967. He also had an artistic bent, continuing his studies at what was then the College of Industrial Art, now the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design.

These studies exposed him to both science and art, which also nurtured his creativity.

Rubik always states in his rare interviews that he owes all his inspiration to his father. He does not like the term “inventor”. He prefers the term “discoverer”, reflecting on how long it took him to first solve the cube, which he made out of blocks of wood and rubber bands to illustrate spatial movement.

The professor showed his students the prototype and it was very popular. But it wasn’t easy to solve. Rubik worked for over a month to solve the cube, so if you’ve struggled with it, don’t feel bad! In fact, mathematicians have calculated that there are 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 ways, that is, more than 43 trillion ways to arrange the squares, but only one combination is right!

When he finally got it, he experienced “a great sense of accomplishment and utter relief.” Of course, todays so-called “speedcubers” who finish the puzzle in 10 seconds or less might not be impressed, but Rubik says: “Remember, this had never been done before.”

The New York Times quoted cognitive scientist Douglas Hofstadter. “It is an ingenious mechanical invention, a pastime, a learning tool, a source of metaphors, an inspiration.” The cube is a paradox, a solid, static object that is also fluid, the NYTimes goes on to say.  “I am not doing it because I want to become a champion, or because I am expecting new discoveries from playing it," Rubitk said. "At the same time, I am expecting new potential for the basic ideas, I see potentials which are not used yet. I’m looking for that.”