50 years of Rubik’s Cube

Rubik with early Rubik’s cube models in Budapest, Hungary. Mathematicians and hobbyists have had a half-century of fun exploring the 43 billion permutations of Rubik’s creation. — ©2024 The New York Times Company

BRIGHT and early on the first Saturday in January, Tomas Rokicki and a few hundred fellow enthusiasts gathered in a vast lecture hall at the Moscone Centre in downtown San Francisco.

A big math conference was under way and Rokicki, a retired programmer based in Palo Alto, California, had helped organise a two-day special session about “serious recreational mathematics” celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Rubik’s Cube.