The Rubik’s Cube has been a fixture in people’s lives for decades. It’s both a strong symbol of ‘80s culture and something that kids and adults still like to play with in the present day. Like Lego, the Rubik’s Cube is timeless, appeals across the world and has occupied countless spare hours.  

While some people love Rubik’s Cubes and others get extremely frustrated by them, there’s no denying that the Rubik’s Cube has impacted the world in a way few toys do. As you may imagine for such an appealing and popular toy, there are many interesting facts about it.

Here are some things about the Rubik’s Cube that you may not have known:

The Rubik’s Cube was created by Ernő Rubik, a Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture, in 1974. He wanted to create an “apparently impossible object.” So impossible, in fact, that it took Rubik himself over a month to solve it the first time round.
Image Source: Wikipedia

When Rubik invented his Cube, he wasn’t even intending it to be a toy. He only noticed its appealing puzzling quality when he was first trying to solve it.  

It was originally called “Magic Cube,” and from 1977, it was only available in Budapest. However, strong sales and promotion in a Nuremberg toy fair led to international distributors wanting to license the toy.
Image Source: Wikipedia

In 1980, the toy’s international distributor, Ideal Toy Corp, changed the name to “Rubik’s Cube,” in the fear of it sounding “too witchy.” Before settling on “Rubik’s Cube”, the distributor also considered naming it “The Gordian Knot” and “Inca Gold.”

It has become the best selling toy in the world, with over 350 million purchases. Image Source: Yahoo

It even won the top toy awards in the UK, France, Germany and the US in 1980.

The Rubik’s Cube was featured on the cover of Scientific American in 1981. Image Source: We Are The mutants

Many instructional books on how to solve the Cube were written during its initial craze. In fact, three of the best selling books in America in 1981 were about solving the Rubik’s Cube, including the top selling book The Simple Solution To Rubik’s Cube by James G. Nourse. This 64 page book sold 6,680,000 copies in its first year.

For many years, the largest Rubik’s Cube of all time stood at ten feet high and was constructed for the 1982 Knoxville World’s Fair. However, a 26 feet high version was revealed at Burning Man in 2011.
Image Source: PC World

There was even a cartoon show about the toy called Rubik, the Amazing Cube. This show starred a magic Rubik’s Cube called Rubik. He could fly and had many superhero powers. However, he only came to life when his puzzle was solved. 13 episodes were made.  

The 26 miniature cubes that make up the apparatus are called cubies or cubelets.

Image Source: Quora

There are 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 different ways to solve it. That’s right, over 43 quintillion.

The Rubik’s Cube also has an international governing body, The World Cube Association. Since 2003, it has been organizing worldwide competitions and keeping world records.

Image Source: The World Cube Association

The Rubik’s Cube has even inspired its own sport: speedcubing. As you may guess from the name, speedcubers attempt to solve Rubik’s Cubes and other similar toys as fast as possible. The first speedcubing championship took place in 1981 in Munich.

The World Cube Association also hosts events where cubes are solved in more challenging ways. These include blindfolded solving, single handed solving and feet only solving.

Image Source: Memory Sports

The current world record for solving a Rubik’s Cube is 4.59 Seconds. South Korean SeungBeom Cho set this record on 28th October 2017 in an event held in Chicago Illinois. He was 18 years old at the time.

The world record for one handed Rubik’s Cube solving is 6.88 seconds. Australian Feliks Zemdegs set this record in 2017 in Malaysia.

The world record for feet only Rubik’s Cube solving is 20.57 seconds. Polish Jakub Kipa set this record in 2015 at an event in Poland.Image source: BT

However, robots have already beaten humans to the record of fastest Rubik’s Cube solving time. A robot called Sub1 solved one in 0.887 seconds.

In later years, Erno Rubik invented other puzzles, including the Rubik’s Snake. More recently, he founded a range of organizations that aim to get more young people into science, math and problem solving careers, by using his puzzles as a starting point. These organizations are called Beyond Rubik’s Cube, the Rubik Learning Initiative and the Judit Polgar Foundation.

Can you solve a Rubik’s Cube?

Header Image Source: Fortune

Even communist filmmakers that hated Hollywood cinema loved The Terminator. For example, Tarkovsky, a crazy Russian auteur, who famously usually hated any film that was for a large audience, said its “vision of the future and the relation between man and its destiny is pushing the frontier of cinema as an art.” This trend of high praise has continued into present day; The Terminator still has a rare 100% fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes, for example.    

Seeing as The Terminator is something that even the harshest critics have praised, it’s not hard to imagine that there are many interesting, strange and incredible facts about its making, release and reception.

Here are the things you may not have known about The Terminator:

1. The idea for the movie came from a nightmare director James Cameron had. Cameron had dreamed of a solid chrome torso crawling out of an explosion. After he woke up, he wrote up the story for The Terminator.
2. Cameron’s other inspirations for The Terminator included 1960s TV series The Outer Limits, Halloween, The Driver and Mad Max 2.  
   
3. Cameron’s agent hated the concept for The Terminator and insisted that Cameron work on a different project. Cameron refused and fired his agent.   
4. The Terminator was only Cameron’s second full length film. His first was Piranha II: The Spawning. However, Cameron later stated that he doesn’t consider Piranha II as his first movie, due to not having much of a say during the production.  
5. An early idea was for two terminators to be sent back in time. This idea was used in the movie’s sequels.
6. Cameron wrote the film with his friend, Bill Wisher, long distance. They would discuss what they were writing by telephone and record the conversations.
   
7. Cameron sold the rights to The Terminator for $1. He made Gale Anne Hurd, whom he sold it to, promise that he would direct the film in exchange for this very low price.
8. During the pitch meeting for the movie, Cameron had actor Lance Henriksen, who plays detective Hal Vukovich, dress as the Terminator. Henriksen broke down the office door while wearing a ripped shirt, combat boots and foil. Executives loved the gimmick and greenlit the movie.
9. The studio originally wanted O.J. Simpson to play the Terminator. The part was also offered to both Sylvester Stallone and Mel Gibson, but after a successful meeting with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Cameron knew he was right for the role.
10. Cameron stated that O.J Simpson was not right as the Terminator, as he didn’t feel Simpson was believable as a killer.
11. Initially, Schwarzenegger did not think that The Terminator would be very successful. He stated in his memoir that “it took a while to figure out that Cameron was the real deal.”
12. And Sting was considered for the role of Kyle Reese before it went to Michael Biehn.
13. Biehn researched the resistance movement in Poland in World War II to get into the character of Reese.
14. Seven artists worked on the Terminator skeleton puppet. It was made out of clay, plaster, urethane molding and an epoxy and fiberglass casting. It was then chrome-plated and distressed.
15. In a gap during production of The Terminator, Cameron wrote the script for Rambo: First Blood Part II.
16. One week before shooting started, Linda Hamilton, who played Sarah Connor, sprained her ankle, which led to last minute scheduling changes so she could recover. Nevertheless, she spent most of the shoot in pain.
    
17. Schwarzenegger had difficulty pronouncing the line, “I’ll be back” and tried to change it. He wanted it changed to, “I will be back,” but Cameron refused.
18. When the movie finished editing, Orion Pictures, the studio, did not have much faith and thought it would get very negative reviews.
    
    
    
19. Harlan Ellison, a writer, threatened to sue The Terminator, as he thought it infringed the copyright of an episode of The Outer Limits that he had written. Despite the threat, he still said that he loved the film.
20. Orion settled Ellison’s infringement claim out of court for an undisclosed sum of money.

It’s hard to imagine a more ‘90s movie than The Mask. It came out in the middle of the decade, starred two giants of ‘90s cinema and had the most ‘90s style logo of all time.

Most people that grew up in the ‘90s have watched The Mask many many times. However, there are a range of interesting things about the movie that you may not be aware of. Did you know any of the following facts?

1. The special effects team saved a lot of money and time, because Jim Carrey’s natural body movements were so cartoonish, that most of the time they didn’t need to digitally enhance them.

2. The oversized teeth the Mask wears were only meant to be used in scenes without speech. But Carrey learned to talk while wearing them, which only enhanced the character’s wackiness.

3. The Mask’s yellow suit was based on an outfit that Jim Carrey’s mother made for him when he first tried to perform stand up comedy.

4. Jim Carrey stated that what attracted him to the role of Stanley Ipkiss was the character’s love of cartoons. Carrey is a huge cartoon fan himself.

5. Many actors were considered for the role of Stanley Ipkiss, including Matthew Broderick, Steve Martin, Rick Moranis and Martin Short. But it’s hard to imagine anyone else but Carrey in the film.

6. Anna Nicole Smith was initially suggested for the role of Tina Carlyle, but it ultimately went to Cameron Diaz, who was discovered while leaving a modeling agency and had no acting credits at the time.

7. It wasn’t easy for Cameron Diaz to get the role, however. Due to her inexperience, she auditioned 12 times and only got cast one week before the movie started shooting.

8. Richard Gere was considered for the role of Lt. Mitch Kellaway, the police detective that hunts the Mask throughout the movie.  

9. Carrey purportedly earned $450,000 for The Mask, since the deal was signed before Ace Ventura: Pet Detective became a hit. After the success of both films, Carrey was reportedly paid $7 million for Dumb and Dumber.

10. Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, The Mask and Dumb and Dumber were all released in 1994.

11. The Mask had its own spin-off animated TV series. If you were a child in the 90s, you probably already knew this, but did you know that the show only lasted for three seasons, with 54 episodes in total? It may seem like there were more, as it was repeated constantly.   

12. The movie was nominated for the Best Visual Effects Oscar but lost to Forrest Gump?

13. A very dark early idea for the movie was to make it about a mask maker that takes the faces from dead bodies and then puts them on teens to transform them into zombies.

14. Although you may not think it, The Mask is considered a superhero movie. In fact, it became the second highest grossing superhero movie of all time shortly after its release.

15. Mike Richardson, the writer of the original The Mask comics, has said that there may be another sequel to The Mask in the future.