Cube-d!

Greetings Dear Reader!

"If you are curious, you will find puzzles around you. If you are determined, you will solve them." -Erno Rubik

April has arrived and it is the month of some very interesting events. One such interesting event is that of the invention of the Rubik's cube. The Rubik's Cube was invented towards the end of April, or on the 25th of April, 1974 to be specific. This year will mark the 41st anniversary of the Rubik's Cube! Let me share some more mind-blowing facts about the Rubik's cube.

• The Rubik's Cube can be scrambled up in 43 quintillion , or 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 different ways, out of which only 1 is correct.

• The notion originating in discussions of ways to solve the Rubik's Cube is called 'God's Number'. 

• While the Rubik's Cube is now known by the name of it's inventor, the toy originally started out it's life as the Magic Cube in Hungary. It was eventually licensed to Idea Toy Corp. in 1979 and rebranded as the Rubik's Cube before its appearance internationally in 1980.

• Rubik's Cube was patented in 1975.

• In 1982, the first world championship was held fueling the speed solving craze known as 'speedcubing'.

• Despite the complexity of Rubik's Cube, humans have solved the Rubik's Cube in less than 6 seconds. The current human record holder Mats Valk of the Netherlands solved the Rubik's Cube in 5.55 seconds.

• Robots, however, have been able to solve the Rubik's Cube even more quickly. The Cubestormer III robot built from Lego kits and powered by a Samsung Galaxy S2 smartphone solved it in 3.25 seconds in March last year.
• The minimum number of moves to solve the Rubik's Cube are as less as 20!

• It took the inventor Rubik himself almost a month to solve the puzzle after he invented it in 1974.

Let us now dig up the past. Erno Rubik, an architect-cum-sculptor was working as a lecturer in an interior designing institute in Budapest, Hungary; in the decade of 1970s. Once he got a cube of six equal square sides prepared from 26 smaller cubes for explaining the principles of 3D design to the students. Each of the 26 smaller cubes was affixed with the adjacent ones in such a way that constituent pieces would not become detached even if the cube were to be twisted on its horizontal or vertical axis.

Erno Rubik

One day Rubik stuck stickers of six different colours on all the six sides of the cube making each side covered with the stickers of same colour. Thereafter, giving a number of turns to the rows and columns of the cube, he made a hodgepodge of colours on every side. Now every side of the cube was multicoloured instead of having a uniform colour. Having done this, without giving a thought of consequences, Rubik tried to bring back the pattern of same-colour sides which he himself had disturbed. He spent many hours turning and twisting the cube and the harder he tried, the goal of bringing uniform colours on all the sides appeared to recede farther and farther.

Racking of his brain didn't bring stickers of the same colour on the same sides but generated a unique brainwave: Why not introduce the  cube in the market as an enigma or a puzzle to solve? Without wasting any time, Rubik got his cube patented in 1975 and collaborating with a manufacturer for commercial production, started marketing it under the name Magic Cube. Market response was overwhelming. Renamed Rubik's Cube, this revolutionary toy-cum-enigma has continued to ride the crest of the wave ever since.

Rubik's Cube has seen huge developments in its design since its invention. Nowadays 4x4x4 and 5x5x5 Rubik's Cube are also available, some of which are shown in the picture below. You can take a look at 62 unique Rubik's Cube's designs here.

If you do not have a 3x3x3 Rubik's Cube, you can try solving  the virtual Rubik's Cube here. However, a physical Rubik's Cube is advisable.

You can also learn how to solve the 3x3x3 Rubik's Cube in 15 minutes here.

Here is a bit of a cheat. If you have a scrambled 3x3x3 cube and cannot figure out how to solve it and still want to prove yourself smart among your friends, you just need to go here, enter the colours of your scrambled cube in the corresponding positions in the cube given on the web page and click 'solve'. By doing so, you will get the complete step-by-step solution to solve your Rubik's Cube. ;)

Well, that's brings us to an end of this discussion. I hope you enjoyed reading the post as much as I enjoyed sharing the facts with you. Do not forget to drop in your feedback/suggestions in the comments below.

The birthstone of the month of April is diamond. Therefore in the next post, I shall share the exciting, intriguing and mysterious story of Hope Diamond - the mystery and curse of the world's most infamous gemstone. Bye!

7: The Magical Number

Greetings Dear Reader!

Stop any person in the street and ask them to choose an odd number between 1 and 10. More often not, they will say the number 7. A poll of 30,000 people confirmed that 7 is overwhelmingly their favourite number - with 3 in the second place. A remarkable 10% of those surveyed gave 7, from the infinite choice of numbers available, as their lucky number.

'7' is indeed a magical number. I have always believed that. Personally, it is also my lucky number. Of course I have my own reasons for it. Firstly, 7 is my date of birth. Interestingly, the sum of the digits of the day, month and year in which I was born (7th March, 1995) is also 7. (7+3+1+9+9+5 = 34, which in turn gives 3+4 = 7).

Snow White ran off to live with seven dwarves, Shakespeare described the seven ages of man, Sindbad the Sailor had seven voyages. And when Ian Fleming was looking for a code for James Bond, he didn't go for 006 or 008. Only 007 had the right ring.

Secondly, my favourite book series, the Harry Potter series has a total of 7 books. While I was reading the Harry Potter series, I came across certain details which point to the number 7. Few of them are listed below:

• The students have to study for seven years at Hogwarts.
• There are seven floors at Hogwarts.
• When Harry, Ron and Hermione travel through the trap door, they find seven tasks to win in order to get to the Philosopher's stone.
• There are seven Horcruxes created by Tom Riddle (Lord Voldemort).
• There are seven players in a Quidditch team.
• There are seven hundered ways to foul in the game of Quidditch.
• There were seven Weasley children.
• Mad-Eye Moody's trunk has seven locks.
• The 'Room of Requirement' is on the seventh floor at Hogwarts.

The number seven is important in many cultures and religions. There are seven steps to creating the Philosopher's Stone in the ancient science of Alchemy. There are seven days in a week, seven colours in a rainbow, seven virtues and seven vices as well as seven branches in a menorah. There are Seven Wonders of the World, seven sacred sciences and seven chakras. There are seven notes on a musical scale, seven seas and seven continents in the world.

In Greek mythology, seven is the symbol of Virgin. It is not possible to construct a perfect heptagon (a polygon with seven sides) or to divide the circle into seven equal portions using simple geometer's tools. Hence, seven is indivisible, unconquerable and virginal. In the ancient study of numerology, seven represents power and perfection.

Research states that people are particularly more emotionally attached to the number 7 than any other number.

Now I present some more interesting facts about the number 7-

(1.)

The sum of the dots on the opposite sides of the dice should always be seven. In case the design does not meet the rule, it is not legally accepted.

(2.)

The movie, with seven letters name, 'Zanjeer', directed by Prakash Mehra was the film that proved a turning point in Amitabh Bachchan's career and rose him to stardom. This time it was actor Pran's son who was responsible for bringing Amitabh Bachchan in the limelight. It was decided that Pran would play the role of a pathan in the movie 'Zanjeer', but the actor who would fight against the villain could not be found. Pran therefore suggested Prakash Mehra to watch the film 'Bombay to Goa'. Though he himself has not seen the movie, yet he had heard a lot of praises from his son for Amitabh Bachchan's acting in the movie. Upon seeing Amitabh Bachchan's fight scene displaying the character's anger and attitude, he immediately exclaimed that he found the hero for his film. He immediately left the theatre without watching the complete movie and later at night visited Amitabh Bachchan to offer him the role.

(3.)

President Ronald Reagan initially began his career as a Hollywood actor in 1937. He was chosen as the President of Screen Actors Guild in 1947 and finally was elected as a Governor as the state of California. His candidature for the post of President was declared in the 17th day of the 7th month of the year. He celebrated his 70th birthday on the 17th day after he was elected the President and was shot on the 70th day by John Hinckley whose bullet hit is 7th rib. Also, when Reagan retired from the post of President, his age was 77.

(4.)

On the 13th day of the battle of Kurukshetra between Kauravas and Pandavas, the Kauravas had designed a particular layout of seven concentric circles known as 'Chakravyuh' (labyrinth) to trap the Pandavas and defeat them. The seven chiefs of the seven respective traps in chronological order were: Duryodhan, Drona, Krup, Karna, Ashwathama, Brihadbal and Kritavarma. Abhimanyu who died at an early age of 16 (1+6 = 7) years, had fallen prey to the unethical ways of the war.

(5.)

The secret formula of preparing Coca-Cola was known by the company as 7X as it was a combination of seven constituents. Anything unknown or unidentified is prefixed or suffixed with the letter 'X' such as the X-rays, planet X or an assumption of a number 'X' in algebra. Therefore the letter 'X' was also suffixed with the number 7. 

Mysore's Central Food and Technological Research Institute marketed the new soft drink under the brand name '77' to commemorate the chasing away of Coca-Cola in the year 1977. Before '77' became popular in the market, the owner of Parle Exports, Ramesh Chauhan, took the consumer market by storm by launching the beverage, 'Thums Up'-a seven-lettered name!

Also read 'The Mystic Number Seven in the life of Abraham Lincoln' here.

Hence, the number 7 is undoubtedly the most special of all the numbers. There are many more facts related with the number 7, which I rest up on  you to discover. If you find any relevant articles, do not forget to post the link in the  comments below!

On that note, I  have come to the end of today's discussion. Today is the start of a new month. April has witnessed a lot of notable events in history. This whole month, I shall discuss such events that took place in the current month in the past. One such remarkable event was the invention of Rubik's Cube. I shall discuss the same in the next post. Do not forget to drop in you reviews and suggestions in the comments below! Bye!