Memories of avoiding these contraptions like an intellectual plague-in childhood and more recently, in the PopSci office, where at least one cube seems to always making the rounds-flood back to me.
But when she leaves me to it, I don’t know how to proceed. Fortunately, the personalized coaching promised in the PR email arrives, and we set about making a “daisy”: one yellow dot centered between four white cubes. But holding my Rubik’s cube over a gourmet pear and pink radicchio salad, I feel totally helpless. Now that the speech-making is over, we set about our “journey,” as the company representative calls it. As the New York Times reported last month, many teens, almost all of them boys, who might otherwise be socially adrift-maybe they’re on the Autism spectrum, or have hyperactivity disorders, or just struggle to fit in-have found acceptance and stimulation in the world of competitive cubing.Ĥ3 quintillion possible combinations-and one solution. But this shock-inducing anecdote speaks to a remarkable and well-documented truth about the Rubik’s cube’s resurgence: It’s created a vibrant community. The company representative then reads a note from a teacher in sixth grade teacher in Washington state who had a student speak for the first time after solving a Rubik’s cube (he said “thank you” in response to his classmate’s applause). No wonder, in an era of unmitigated chaos, this plastic idol is increasingly the center of vaguely religious gatherings like these. In popular culture, it’s depicted as the key to the universe solve it, like Will Smith’s character did in the movie The Pursuit of Happyness, and the world reveals itself to you. The colors, while bright, are strictly regimented, lending them the soothing effect of a Mondrian painting. Geometry, last I checked, remains un-politicized. Rubik’s cubes, by contrast, get few complaints.