The Man Who Invented the Rubik’s Cube发明魔方的人

The first person to solve a Rubik’s Cube spent a month struggling to unscramble it. It was the puzzle’s creator， an unassuming Hungarian architecture professor named Ernő Rubik. When he invented the cube in 1974， he wasn’t sure it could be solved. Mathematicians later calculated that there are 43，252，003，274，489，856，000 ways to arrange the squares， but just one of those combinations is correct.

第一位还原魔方的人花了一个月才好不容易完成。他就是魔方的创造者艾尔诺·鲁比克，一位并不起眼的匈牙利建筑学教授。他于1974年发明了魔方，自己都不确定能不能还原。后来，数学家们计算出，魔方块有43，252，003，274，489，856，000种排列方式，但正确解法只有一个。

When Rubik finally did it， after weeks of frustration， he was overcome by “a great sense of accomplishment and utter relief.” Looking back， he realises the new generation of ‘speed-cubers’ might not be impressed.

经历了几周挫败，鲁比克最终还原成功时，他满心都是“巨大的成就感和彻底的解脱感”。回想起来，他觉得现在这一代“竞速选手们”可能会不以为意。

“But， remember，” Rubik writes in his recent memoir， Cubed， “this had never been done before.”

“但记住，我可是第一个做到的人。”鲁比克在他的自传《魔方之谜》里这样写道。

In the nearly five decades since， the Rubik’s Cube has become one of the most enduring， beguiling， maddening and absorbing puzzles ever created. More than 350 million cubes have sold globally; if you include knockoffs， the number is far higher. They captivate computer programmers， philosophers and artists. Hundreds of books， promising speed-solving strategies， analyzing cube design principles or exploring their philosophical significance， have been published.

随后的近50年，魔方已经成了有史以来最经久不衰、最妙趣横生、让人火大又引人入胜的益智玩具之一。全球已售出超过3.5亿个魔方；如果再加上廉价的仿制品，这个数字还会更高。它吸引着计算机程序员、哲学家和艺术家。许许多多的相关书籍出版，有教怎么快速还原的，有分析魔方设计原则的，还有探讨其哲学意义的。

The cube came to embody “much more than just a puzzle，” the cognitive scientist Douglas Hofstadter wrote in 1981. “It is an ingenious mechanical invention， a pastime， a learning tool， a source of metaphors， an inspiration.”

魔方体现的“可不仅仅是谜题”，认知科学家侯世达在1981年写道，“它是一项巧妙的机械发明，可以打发时间、益智头脑，还能作为一种象征，给人启发”。

But even as the Rubik’s Cube conquered the world， the publicity-averse man behind it has remained a mystery.

但是，即便魔方已经风靡全球，它背后那个低调的创造者仍是个谜。

Rubik， 78， is lively and animated， gesturing with his glasses and bouncing on the couch in his living room， running his hands through his hair so that it stands up in a grey tuft， giving him the look of a startled bird. He speaks formally and gives long， elaborate， philosophical answers.

78岁的鲁比克精神矍铄，他拿着眼镜比划手势，在客厅的沙发上起起坐坐，用手把灰白的头发拢作一簇，看起来像只受惊的鸟。他讲话很正式，回答得很长、很详细，富有哲理。

He speaks about the cube as if it’s his child. “I’m very close to the cube. The cube was growing up next to me and right now， it’s middle-aged， so I know a lot about it，” he said.

他像谈论自己的小孩一样谈起魔方。他说：“我和这个小方块走得很近。魔方和我一起长大，现在它已经到中年了，我对它了解很多。”

Ernő Rubik was born on July 13， 1944， in the basement of a Budapest hospital that had become an air-raid shelter. His father was an engineer who designed aerial gliders.

1944年7月13日，艾尔诺·鲁比克出生于布达佩斯一家已经成了防空洞的医院地下室。他的父亲是一位工程师，设计空中滑翔机。

As a boy， Rubik loved to draw， paint and sculpt. He studied architecture at the Technical University of Budapest， then attended the College of Applied Arts. He became obsessed with geometric patterns. As a professor， he taught a class called descriptive geometry， which involved teaching students to use two-dimensional images to represent three-dimensional shapes and problems. It was an odd and esoteric field， but it prepared him to develop the cube.

孩童时期，鲁比克喜欢绘画和雕塑。他在布达佩斯理工大学学习建筑，后就读于应用艺术学院。他开始痴迷于几何图形。当上教授后，他开设了一门叫描述性几何的课程，教学生们使用二维图形来表示三维的形状和问题。这一领域古怪又高深，但为他发明魔方做好了准备。

In the spring of 1974， when he was 29， Rubik was in his bedroom at his mother’s apartment， tinkering. He describes his room as resembling the inside of a child’s pocket， with crayons， string， sticks， springs and scraps of paper scattered across every surface. It was also full of cubes he had made out of paper and wood.

1974年春天，鲁比克29岁，他就在母亲公寓自己的卧室里捣鼓。据他所说，他的卧室就像孩子的口袋，里面到处都是蜡笔、绳子、棍子、弹簧和纸片，还有他用纸和木头做成的小立方体。

One day—“I don’t know exactly why，” he writes in his book—he tried to put together eight cubes so that they could stick together but also move around， exchanging places. He made the cubes out of wood， then drilled a hole in the corners of the cubes to link them together. The object quickly fell apart.

有一天，他试着把八个小立方体组合起来，让它们既粘在一起，又能移动，互换位置。“我也不知道为什么想这么做。”他在书中写道。他用木头做小立方体，然后在它们的四角钻洞，好让它们连在一起。但做出来的东西很快就散架了。

Many iterations later， Rubik figured out the unique design that allowed him to build something paradoxical： a solid， static object that is also fluid. Next he decided to paint the faces of the squares yellow， blue， red， orange， green， and white to make their movement visible. Rubik gave it a twist， then another turn， and kept twisting until he realised he might not be able to restore it to its original state. He was lost in a colourful maze， and had no clue how to navigate it. And there was no way back.

反复尝试后，鲁比克想到了独特的设计方法，得以成功制作出这种矛盾的东西：稳固、静态，又能活动。然后，他决定在正方形表面涂上黄色、蓝色、红色、橙色、绿色和白色，好让移动清晰可见。鲁比克把它转了一圈又一圈，直到他意识到他可能没法还原了。他迷失在色彩斑斓的迷宫里，毫无头绪，而且已经没有回头路了。

After the cube became a global phenomenon， there would be erroneous accounts of Rubik’s creative process， that he worked on the cube day and night for weeks. In reality， he went to his job， saw friends， and worked on solving the cube in his spare time， for fun. After he cracked it， Rubik submitted an application at the Hungarian Patent Office for a “three-dimensional logical toy”. A manufacturer of chess sets and plastic toys made 5000 copies. In 1977， Rubik’s “Buvös Kocka”， or ‘Magic Cube’， debuted in Hungarian toy shops. Two years later， 300，000 cubes had sold in Hungary.