Inventor of Rubik’s Cube turns 80 — and looks back on 50 years of the world’s most popular puzzle toy

Fifty years ago, as he sat in his mother’s apartment in Budapest, Hungary, young professor, Ernő Rubik, finally finished the prototype of his “Magic Cube.”

A teacher at the Department of Interior Design, Rubik was fascinated by geometry but his attempts to create a solid, 3D structure with movable and interchangeable layers had frustrated him. 

But after months of perseverance, Rubik struck gold – not that he was thinking about any commercial possibilities. “I just made it for my own curiosity,” he told The Post in a video call. “I suppose it’s like being an artist. If you’re happy with your creation, you want to show people. 

“You want it to be liked.”

Half a century and 500 million sales later, it’s estimated that one in every seven people on the planet has attempted to solve what became “Rubik’s Cube,” a puzzle with a mind-boggling 43 quintillion permutations.

A cultural phenomenon, Rubik recently set about counting how many magazine covers his cube had appeared on but stopped when the tally passed 1,500.