Geniuses and simpletons alike marvel at the simplicity and complication of this six-colored cube. The Rubik’s Cube has stumped generation after generation. A simple goal: move the little squares on the box around so that all the same colors are on the same side. Sound simple? Find out for yourself.

Ernő Rubik, a Hungarian sculptor, crafted this mechanical masterpiece in 1974. First called the “Magic Cube”, it was renamed to the Rubik’s Cube by Ideal Toys. Winning the 1980 German “best puzzle of the year” award, it continued to sell until over 300,000,000 cubes were sold worldwide.

The average cube is 3×3x3. There are 519,024,039,293,878,272,000 possible arrangements of the cube. David Singmaster’s book, Notes on Rubik’s Magic Cube, held the most popular solution. It solved the cube layer by layer, corners first. With practice, it was possible to solve under one minute.

At the first international Rubik’s Cube World Championship, Minh Thai, a Vietnamese student from Los Angeles, won with a time of 22.95 seconds. Since then, the best time was set by Ron van Bruchem of the Netherlands with a time of 9.55 seconds. New competitions have sprung up, including:

• Blindfolding solving
• Solving the cube with one person blindfolded and the other person saying what moves to do, known as “Team Blindfold
• Solving the cube underwater in a single breath
• Solving the cube using a single hand
• Solving the cube with one’s feet

Scams all around the world have fooled many. The best way to trick your friends is this. Begin by taking a solved Rubik’s cube begin to tape yourself. Start to turn and twist the cube until it all the colors are mixed up again, the way you would have normally started at. Put the video on the computer and, when you post it, flip the video so it plays backwards. It may take a few tries but it will seem as though you solved the Rubik’s Cube in little time!