At the beginning of the 1980s, puzzle fever broke out: the invention of the Rubik’s Cube overcame the Iron Curtain, brought dollars to the East and gave rise to a dispute over patents and trademark rights.
The waves of the river pushing pebbles back and forth – and yet the shape of the bank remains the same: what Ernő Rubik observed on the banks of the Danube inspired him to invent his Rubik’s Cube, as he later said. In a rickety room, the 29-year-old lecturer sanded pieces of wood to shape and connected them with rubber bands and paper clips. He was fascinated by the result – especially after he had stuck colored stickers on the sides: After Rubik had twisted them against each other, it took him weeks to recreate the colored sides with nine parts each.
Source: Stern
