When Erno Rubik (Budapest, 1944) created his famous Cube In 1974, motivated by his passion for spatial geometry, he could not suspect that what he had just invented would be one of the most iconic design objects and also the best-selling toy of all time. And even less could he have imagined that, before becoming a commercial phenomenon, the cube would serve as an inspiration for the mathematical community, raising a series of questions that were as complicated to answer as they were easy to state. Possibly the most important of these was resolved just 10 years ago, in July 2010. Then, three researchers demonstrated that it is always possible to solve the game with 20 moves or less, regardless of the starting position. To do this, they used a combination of theoretical mathematics and the equivalent of 35 years of work on a conventional computer, culminating a research effort of more than 30 years.
