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Reading Rubik's Cube - How The Puzzle Achieved Success

Erno Rubik, a Hungarian teacher of interior design, invented the Rubik's Cube in the 1970s while working as a teacher. He called it the 'Magic Cube' and was inspired by geometric puzzles like tangrams. Rubik's Cube consisted of a cube made up of smaller cubes that could move independently in any direction except diagonally. Rubik experimented with different ways of marking the cubes before settling on assigning each side of the small cubes a different color. The goal was to twist the layers so that each side of the large cube was one solid color. The Cube gained popularity after being introduced at toy fairs in the late 1970s and has gone on to become the world's best-

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422 views2 pages

Reading Rubik's Cube - How The Puzzle Achieved Success

Erno Rubik, a Hungarian teacher of interior design, invented the Rubik's Cube in the 1970s while working as a teacher. He called it the 'Magic Cube' and was inspired by geometric puzzles like tangrams. Rubik's Cube consisted of a cube made up of smaller cubes that could move independently in any direction except diagonally. Rubik experimented with different ways of marking the cubes before settling on assigning each side of the small cubes a different color. The goal was to twist the layers so that each side of the large cube was one solid color. The Cube gained popularity after being introduced at toy fairs in the late 1970s and has gone on to become the world's best-

Uploaded by

Trung Nguyễn
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Reading

Rubik’s Cube - How the puzzle achieved success

Erno Rubik first studied sculpture(Điêu khắc) and then later architecture(Kiến trúc) in Budapest, where he
went on to become a teacher of interior design(Thiết kế nội thất). It was while he was working as a teacher
that he began the preliminary work on an invention that he called the ‘Magic Cube'.

Rubik was inspired by(Được lấy cảm hứng từ) geometric(Hình học) puzzles(Câu đố) such as the Chinese
tangram, a puzzle consisting of various(Đa dạng) triangles(Các hình tam giác), a square(Hình vuông) and a
parallelogram(Hình bình hành) which can be combined(Kết hợp) to create(Tạo ra) different shapes(Hình
dạng) and figures(Số Liệu). However, unlike the tangram, which is two- dimensional(Hai chiều), Rubik was
more interested in investigating(Nghiên cứu) how three-dimensional forms(Dạng ba chiều hình thành thế
nào), such as the cube, could be moved and combined(Kết hợp) to produce other forms.

His design consisted of(Bao gồm) a cube made up of(Được tạo thành từ) layers of individual(Riêng lẻ)
smaller cubes, and each smaller cube could be turned in any direction(Hướng) except(Ngoại trừ)
diagonally(Theo đường chéo). To ensure that the cubes could move independently, without falling apart(Mà
không tan vỡ), Rubik first attempted to join them together using elastic bands. However, this proved to be
impossible, so Rubik then solved the problem by assembling them using a rounded interior. This permitted
them to move smoothly and easily. He experimented with different ways of marking the smaller cubes, but
ended up with the simple solution of giving a different colour to each side. The object was to twist the layers
of small cubes so that each side of the large cube was an identical colour.

Rubik took out a patent for the Cube in 1977 and started manufacturing it in the same year. The Cube came
to the attention of a Hungarian businessman, Tibor Laczi, who then demonstrated it at the Nuremberg Toy
Fair. When British toy expert Tom Kremer saw it, he thought it was amazing and he persuaded a
manufacturer, Ideal Toys, to produce 1 million of them in 1979. Ideal Toys renamed the Cube after the toy’s
inventor, and in 1980, Rubik’s Cube was shown at toy fairs(Hội chợ) all over the world. It won that year’s
prize in Germany for Best Puzzle. Rubik’s Cube is believed to be the world’s best-selling puzzle; since its
invention, more than 300 million Cubes have been sold worldwide.

Questions 1-7
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.
Rubik’s Cube
Originally named the (1) Magic Cube, Rubik’s Cube consists of a number of smaller cubes organised in (2)
layers .
The smaller cubes can be twisted in almost any way, though not (3) diagonally . The Cube’s (4) interior. is
shaped in a way that allows the smaller cubes to move smoothly. Each side of the smaller cubes has a
different colour, and the aim of the puzzle is to organise the cubes so that the colours on the sides of the
large cube are (5) identical
The manufacturers of the puzzle changed the name of the Cube to the name of its (6) inventor it has now
sold more than any other (7) puzzle in the world.

1
Listening
https://soundcloud.com/lan-anh-nguy-n-522721540/basic-lis-w1

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