The world-famous Rubik Cube’s inventor celebrates his 75th birthday – VIDEO
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The Hungarian inventor gained international success with his brilliant brainchild, the world-famous Rubik’s Cube. Besides several acknowledgements, in 2014 he was awarded by honorary citizenship of Budapest.
The engineer-inventor was born on July 13, 1944, in Budapest. His father was an aircraft designer, thanks to whom Ernő Rubik inherited an inventive spirit that could be improved during his studies. In 1967, he graduated as an architect at Budapest University of Technology, that was followed by studying interior design at the Academy of Applied Arts from 1971. Then, he worked as an architect-designer and taught at the College of Applied Arts (recently called Moholy-Nagy University of Art) between 1970 and 1988.
In 1974, he designed his invention for teaching purposes – illustrating spatial movements and engineering modelling.
In an interview, he described how the idea of the “Magic Cube” was born – while teaching at the college; he was wondering how he could demonstrate 3D movement for students. The idea of the cube’s rotation mechanism was born by observing how water flew between the rocks of the River Danube – described by the Hungarian news portal szeretlekmagyarorszag.hu.
It turned out that the illustrational tool was an enjoyable game as well.
According to legends, Rubik’s Cube prototype was assembled by the Hungarian inventor after experimenting with wood, rubber and paper clips at his mother’s apartment. After some further developments, it reached its final version.
Initially, the Magic Cube did not have colours. In order to differentiate the units, he chose the primary colours, thanks to which its rotation became visible and tangible. He also admitted that it took him weeks to solve the riddle of the cube.
