Rubik's cube, again

It was only about 20 days ago that I was writing about the Rubik's Cube. I'm sure you know what this toy is all about. It's a 3x3 cube that you twirl and whirl in your hands until you align all the colours correctly into their original positions - one colour on each face of the cube. It can be an exasperating game if you do not know where to start or end, but fanatics at it are known to solve the puzzle within 15 seconds of their lives without getting a medical affliction known as Rubik's Elbow - soreness in the joints affecting the elbows and wrists from playing too much with the cube..

Take, for example, Yu Nakajima of Japan. That's him, here on the right. Last Sunday, he won the Rubik's Cube World Championships in Budapest to honour the 25th anniversary of the first championship.

Nakajima averaged 12.46 seconds from five attempts, enough to win the first prize of 5,000 euros, but which was miles away from the world record of 9.86 seconds set in May this year by Frenchie Thibaut Jacquinot.

The event attracted nearly 300 participants from 33 countries who tried their hands and feet to solve the Cube. It seems that more than 300 million cubes have been sold worldwide to date with 12 million expected to be sold this year alone.

The Rubik's Cube is an invention of Hungarian architect Erno Rubik who turned up in Budapest to give away the prizes. It's been said that he has not been seen in public for 10 years.

Anyway, mathematicians have determined that the Rubik's Cube has 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 different positions or permutations (read this as 43 quintillion). Are you impressed what a simple 3x3 cube can get you??

By the way, there is no such thing as Rubik's Elbow. It's just an imagination ... my mind working overtime.