​Knights Lab

Meeting Erno Rubik

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I got heavily into the cube in 1999. It was pure joy to spend hours scrambling and resolving the cube, sometimes timing myself, sometimes trying to understand it better. I began to post my progress on my web page, and several months later, in the fall of 1999, I received an email from a TV producer for a British morning show called, "The Big Breakfast." She told me that Erno Rubik was coming to their talk show, and that they wanted a few speedcubers to be on the show with him. When I agreed to come, she replied, "Okay, great. Are you in London, and can you be at the studio Tuesday morning?" It was Friday, and I was in Vermont. After some deliberation, I eventually replied, "yes, I'm in London, and I can be there." I then found a cheap flight to London, and four days later I was on the show with Rubik.

During the filming, I noticed two women offstage who where pointing at me. When the show ended, they introduced themselves as Rubik's public relations team. It turned out that Rubik was at the start of a week-long publicity tour around England, and they liked the idea of having a young speed-cuber beside him for the TV appearances. They invited me to come with them for the week, and we all headed off to Rubik's hotel. Over the next few days, we did a number of talk shows and news interviews (ITV news, Granada Tonight Show, etc.), several radio shows, and a few newspaper interviews. Rubik was friendly, though generally quiet and pensive. He solved my cube using his own method, which included finishing off with the elegant "Rubik's maneuver" that I have heard was the final discover he made when he solved the cube for the first time.