In 1980 a small toy invented by Erno Rubik, a Hungarian obsessed with 3D geometry, became a smash hit. The almost impossible to solve Rubik's Cube was everywhere - in the shops, on TV, in the record books, but mainly in bits on frustrated children's floors.

I, like millions of other kids, had a Rubik's Cube and I, like millions of other kids, never managed to actually solve the problem. Instead I resorted to either taking the thing apart or trying unsuccessfully to peel off the coloured plastic stuck to the cube's faces so as to rearrange the colour without rearranging the cube.

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