The mind behind the Rubik’s Cube celebrates a lasting puzzle

NEW YORK (AP) — If you've ever had trouble solving a Rubik’s Cube, a good piece of advice is to break it down into steps. It's worth a shot: That advice is from the man who invented it.

“Problem solving is a very basic activity of the human mind and if a problem is complex you need to divide the problem into smaller elements,” says Ernő Rubik, who invented the cube in 1974.

Rubik has seen his color-matching puzzle go from a classroom teaching tool in Cold War-era Hungary to a worldwide phenomenon with over 450 million cubes sold and a mini-empire of related toys.

“For me, the cube represents what freedom means. Freedom is never endless,” he said during a recent visit to New York. “It lets you do what is necessary to achieve your goal.”