From: David Singmaster Computing & Maths South Bank Univ To: whuang@ugcs.caltech.edu Message-ID: <009C25BA.E326A9B3.4@ice.sbu.ac.uk> Subject: RE: Taiwanese Invention of the Cube? The earliest idea was due to someone in California, named William O. Gustafson (US patent 3,081,089 of 12 Mar 1963). He had a 2^3 in the shape of a sphere, but he had the problem of keeping the interior parts in synch with the outer parts and so he left gaps between the pieces. Basically he had an interior sphere with grooves and the pieces had lips. There are two versions - the first seems like it wouldn't work well, if at all, but the second seems fairly feasible. Unfortunately, Gustafson let his patent lapse, so the patent of Larry Nichols was the next, with US patent 3,655,201 (applied 4 Mar 1970, issued 11 Apr 1972). This had only the idea of a cubical puzzle and no practical mechanism, so I don't consider it very significant, but Nichols sued Rubik, more or less successfully - I never heard the conclusion of the story. Frank Fox (UK patent 1,344,259, applied for on 9 Apr 1970 and issued on 16 Jan 1974) seems to be next. He had a 3^3 sphere with tongue and grooves holding the pieces together, with a hollow center. He had let his patent lapse also. In 1976-1980, Terutoshi Ishige devised and patented two mechanisms for a 2^3., similar to Rubik's. This may be the source of the story you were asking about. However, there is another odd story. The first French writers on the Cube record that a old friend said he had played with such a cube (in wood) in Istanbul in 1920 and in Marseilles about 1935. However, no further evidence of such an early version has appeared. I forgot to set this to send myself a copy. Could you forward it back to me. Also you might like to send it to cube-lovers@ai.mit.edu Regards DAVID SINGMASTER, Professor of Mathematics and Metagrobologist School of Computing, Information Systems and Mathematics Southbank University, London, SE1 0AA, UK. Tel: 0171-815 7411; fax: 0171-815 7499; email: zingmast or David.Singmaster @sbu.ac.uk -- Wei-Hwa Huang, whuang@ugcs.caltech.edu, http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~whuang/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Have you heard the one about the guy Jean who visited Japan?