8 fun facts about the Rubik's Cube

Rubik's Cube is a 6 sided mechanical puzzle that turns about 3 axes to produce an almost endless number of combinations. The aim is to return the cube to a state where there is a distinct color on all 6 sides.  

Here are 8 fun facts about the Rubik's Cube.

Bonus content below

1.  Invented in 1974, it took the inventor (Professor Ernő Rubik) over a month to solve it.

2. Over 350 million Rubik's Cube have been sold worldwide

At an average price of 10 USD, 3.5 billion dollars have been spent on the Rubik's Cube!

3. It has been calculated that there are 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 possible permutations of the Rubik's Cube.

That is 43 quintillion, 43 followed by 18 zeros! If you had 43 quintillion dollars, you can spend a trillion dollars a day for the next 118 thousand years.

4. If you manage to turn the Rubik's Cube once every second, it will take you 1.4 trillion years to go through all the permutations.

The age of the universe is only 14 billion years, thus you won't be done even if you started this during the Big Bang.

5. It can be estimated that less than 5.8% of the world's population can solve the Rubik's Cube

6. The world record for solving the Rubik's Cube is 5.55 seconds by Mats Valk

7. A robot made of Legos solved the Rubik's Cube in 3.253 seconds

8. The largest Rubik's Cube ever made is a 17x17x17 cube. 

Kenneth Brandon solved it in 7.5 hours.

Bonus: If you can't solve it, smash it!

Interest in solving the Rubik's Cube? Take a look at my solution guide.