What inspired Erno Rubik was the popular puzzle before his called the 15 Puzzle. Invented in the late 1870's, this puzzle consisted of 15 consecutively numbered, flat squares that can be slid around inside a square frame. Sam Loyd created this two dimensional version of the Rubiks Cube. The puzzle was originally called the Magic Cube, or Buvuos Kocka in Hungarian. It was later renamed in honor of it's creator to the Rubiks Cube.
Solving this puzzle involves both sides of the brain as you must be able to previsualize spatially the final result while you remember where you've been in the sequence of rotations. Though a very difficult puzzle, it is a good exercise for brain flexing whether you accomplish the final result or not.
In 1982, Minh Thai, sixteen year old, solved the 3x3x3 cube in 22.95 seconds.
