The Jersey City Independent "

Following the Liberty Science Center gala during which Budapest inventor Ernő Rubik received a genius award from the museum, LSC will be producing an exhibition based on his iconic invention, the Rubik’s Cube. The exhibit will celebrate the Cube’s 40th anniversary in 2014. The Rubik’s Cube remains the world’s best-selling puzzle.

“The Cube is pleasing to look at, fun to hold and twist, beautifully engineered, and full of deep mathematics,” Paul Hoffman, President and CEO of Liberty Science Center, said in a statement. “From a modest start in a Hungarian classroom in 1974, the Cube has crossed every border and sold nearly 500 million copies.”

“I never imagined the Cube would become as universal as it has,” Rubik added. “I’m hoping that this wonderful exhibition will finally answer the question of ‘Why? Why has the Cube connected with hundreds of millions of people everywhere on Earth?’”

The Rubik’s Cube Exhibition will open in April 2014 and will remain at the Center for six months. After, it will travel around the world to art museums, science centers, and alternative exhibit spaces for up to seven years.

The exhibition will give attendees a look at various iterations of the Cube, including a working Rubik’s Cube made from $2.5 million worth of diamonds, Cube artwork and Cube-solving robots, as well as virtual reality simulations of Cubes that aren’t really there.

Cubes will be presented both enormous and tiny, such as the glowing 35-foot-tall Rubik’s Cube that can be manipulated by anyone with an Internet connection. There will also be a tiny nanoscale Cube. Google is partnering with LSC on the creative side of the exhibit.

“Rubik’s Cube has stood the test of time,” added Hoffman, “and yet remains on the leading edge of innovation. Not a week goes by without somebody—an architect in Turkey, a musician in China, a mathematician in Moscow, or a roboticist in Japan—using the Cube in an ingenious new way. Google embraces innovation, and LSC is delighted that the company is supporting the Rubik’s project.”

“At Google, we are all about tackling tough challenges with as much accuracy and speed as possible,” Lorraine Twohill, head of Global Marketing at Google, said. “The Rubik’s Cube embodies this drive, encouraging people around the world to try their hand at one of the world’s most iconic toys. We are happy to contribute to Liberty Science Center’s worldwide effort to use the Cube to get children excited about science, technology, engineering and math.”

The Rubik’s Cube Exhibition is presented with support by the government of Hungary, Diamond Cutters International, Josh Weston, Ernő Rubik, Seven Towns, Jennifer Chalsty, the Overdeck Family Foundation, Prudential, and Ernst & Young LLP.

Photo courtesy Liberty Science Center