Thinking Inside the Cube

 

 

C hris Gardner (the man who wrote the book "The Pursuit of Happyness") tried to impress his potential employer with his dexterity on this. Apparently, Aamir Khan can solve it under a minute! It sits as a permanent exhibit at the New York Museum of Modern Art and has even entered the Oxford English Dictionary, a notoriously difficult tome to earn a place in. And then there is the small matter of 350 million units of it that have been sold worldwide over the last quarter of a century or so. The Rubik’s Cube is a puzzle, a pop culture icon, a symbol of intellectual superiority and a piece of art all rolled into one. Its global success has spawned thousands of imitations and hundreds of spin-offs, all generating millions in business.

But this is not a story about how the puzzle market makes its money or an investigation of what makes a blockbuster puzzle. It is a glimpse into the answer to the more normal, yet infinitely more exciting question – what draws us to puzzles? With the producer-multiplex tiff showing no signs of abating and the long lazing shadow of the summer vacations upon us, everyone’s looking for an engaging activity. There’s no better a starting point than the big daddy of them all in puzzle land – the 3X3 Rubik’s Cube.

In the 1970s, while working as a lecturer in the Department of Interior Design at the Academy of Applied Arts and Crafts in Budapest, Professor Erno Rubik designed something called the ‘Magic Cube’, which he used to demonstrate his theories in 3D design to his students. Word of mouth spread about the thingamajig and Tom Kremer, the founder of London based 7 Towns, discovered it at the Nuremberg Toy Fair and the rest is history. Millions were captivated, yet confounded by the Rubik's Cube phenomenon.

One of them was Dan Knights. He is a ‘speedcuber’. In other words, he can solve the Cube fast. Really fast. Knights won the World Championship in 2003 with an average time of 20 seconds and a fastest time of 16.71 seconds. How does he do it? Knights told TSI, “When I was training for the championship I would practice speedcubing about 3 hours per day. I can do just about any Rubik's Cube-like puzzle that's been invented, but the 3x3x3 Cube is the only one that I do for speed.” The runner up in the 2003 championships was Jessica Fridrich, an extraordinary lady who was tenth in the first World Championships held in Budapest way back in 1982. (Just for trivia geeks, Mihn Thai of USA won with a time of 22.95 seconds). Incidentally, her expertise in the Cube world extends beyond World Championship honours. She’s the one who’s developed the ‘Fridrich Method’ – an algorithm popular among speedcubers (including Knights) to hone their skills. Says Fridrich to TSI, “I love the Rubik’s Cube since it combines physical dexterity with the mind unlike chess. The Cube’s a fascinating thing because it looks so easy and is so easy to explain. Schematically it’s easy too with the colours but it’s fascinating to solve.” Ask her about her exploits as a speedcuber and she explains, “When a speedcuber is intro- duced to people, they consider you with awe…almost like a semi-God!” Indeed, being good at cracking puzzles seems like a divine gift.

If you trace mankind’s fascination with puzzles or variations thereof, you’ll find it deeply rooted in one of the most primitive of institutions – that of religion. Whether it’s the mathematical formulae engraved on the walls of ancient temples in China and Japan, or the prophecies and verses in the Bible and other biblical texts, history seems ‘riddled’ with them. And just about everyone, regardless of their intellectual bent, loves a puzzle and loves even more to solve it. Just ask the millions who were enthralled by Dan Brown’s "The Da Vinci Code". The novel’s success stems from the fact that it laid a challenge in front of its readers to solve generating intense involvement. Da Vinci himself was fascinated by ciphers and hidden symbols and actually used them extensively in his work, though perhaps not with as much of a conspiratorial intent as the novel suggests. An intellectual challenge like a puzzle serves as a metaphor for life and as Dan Knights puts it, "I think puzzles keep us occupied because we can solve them every time, no matter how chaotically they have been scrambled. Life is rarely so deterministic."

Apart from its geek appeal, the Cube is also quite addictive. Jason Spencer-Galsworthy, an avid Cuber from the UK tells TSI, “For me, cubing is a meditative affair that helps me relax as it takes little or no thought any more. And it's a compulsion - if I ever see a lonely and confused Cube sitting in the corner of a dusty brick'a'brack shop I become immediately distracted and overwhelmed by an irresistible need to go to its aid.” Of course, solving it delivers a high that Jason says is “about as close as I will ever come to feeling like James Bond!”

And most importantly, the Cube even carries little life lessons within it. Says Jessica Fridrich, “It teaches values that if you want to achieve something you really have to stick to it and try hard.” Knights has the appropriate final words, “Puzzles like

Rubik's Cube require a special kind of imagination to solve, and an equally special kind of patience. It seems that as people are becoming increasingly accustomed to instant satisfaction by way of television, computer games, the internet, 24-hour shopping, etc.,. it is all the more important that they maintain their capacity for focused, patient problem-solving.

And the Cube doesn't need batteries!”