Erno Rubik

He is married to Ágnes Hégely, and together they have four children named Ágnes, Anna, Ernő Jr, and Szonja. He is extraordinarily private with his personal life, rarely making public appearances or granting interviews. In such rare moments, he has named his hobbies as reading and gardening.

The ‘Rubik’s Cube’ defined the 1980s by creating an art movement known as ‘Rubik Cubism’ and appearing in Hollywood and music videos. In 2014, he began a six-year tour of “Beyond Rubik’s Cube,” a program that will talk about science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

He was born to Ernő Rubik, a flight engineer, and Magdolna Szántó, a poet, during the Second World War. He has credited his father as his main inspiration in nearly all interviews.

As a flight engineer, his father gained an international reputation for his skills. His son credited this to his father’s ability to never give up, even if it meant doing something with your own two hands.

In 1958, he began to study sculpture at a secondary arts school and, upon graduating four years later, enrolled at ‘Budapest University of Technology’ to study architecture.

Beginning in 1971 and continuing for eight years, he taught architecture at ‘Budapest College of Applied Arts’, a division of the same college he attended.

In 1974, he began and completed the first few models of his cube puzzle with the intent to challenge his students. He applied for a patent the following year.

He struggled to get his puzzle built because of the failing Hungarian economy. Eventually, a smaller company produced his toy and it sold moderately well countrywide. At this time, it was titled ‘The Magic Cube’.

In 1979, he was able to convince a New York based company, called “Ideal Toys”, to mass produce it. They rebranded it completely and renamed it the ‘Rubik’s Cube’.

Upon its release, the ‘Rubik’s Cube’ became a sensation internationally, selling over 350 million as of 2015. It was awarded ‘Toy of the Year’ for several years in a row in many different countries.

Rubik handmade, the ‘Rubik’s Cube’, the best-selling toy of all time in 1974 to challenge his students in the classroom. After his first toy sold over hundreds of millions of prototypes, he created his own company that would focus on creating more of these puzzles.

A teacher his whole life, he returned to education in 1990, when he became president of the ‘Hungarian Engineering Academy’. He looks out for promising students who might create an impossible puzzle on their own.