Polycube Puzzle, SOMA Cube
date: label: date made
content: ca 1970
name: label: maker
content: Parker Brothers
notes: label: Description
content: The SOMA cube is a three-dimensional arrangement puzzle devised in 1936 by the Danish poet and puzzler Peter Hein (1905-1996) while he was a student listening to a lecture on quantum mechanics by Werner Heisenberg. The seven pieces represent all the ways three or four cubes can be arranged, other than in a straight line. In addition to forming a cube, the pieces can form in a wide array of other surfaces. According to Slocum and Bosterman, the name SOMA is taken from a drug envisioned in Aldous Huxley’s book <I>Brave New World</I>. The drug SOMA induced a dreamlike trance.
label: Description
content: This example of the puzzle is made from light blue plastic. It closely resembles one sold by Parker Brothers from the late 1960s.
label: Description
content: References:
label: Description
content: Martin Gardner, <I>The Colossal Book of Mathematics</I>, New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company, 2001, pp. 398-408. Gardner first wrote a column about the puzzle in 1958.
label: Description
content: Martin Gardner, <I>Knotted Doughnuts and Other Mathematical Entertainments</I>, New York: W. H. Freeman and Company, 1986, pp. 28-43.
label: Description
content: [Advertisement], <I>The Washington Post</I>, Washington, D.C., November 30,1969, p. 214. The puzzle by Parker Bothers sold for $1.57.
label: Description
content: Jerry Slocum and Jack Botermans, <I> Puzzles Old and New: How to Make and Solve Them</I>, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1986, pp. 40-41.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
topic: label: Subject
content: Mathematics
label: Subject
content: Education
label: Subject
content: Mathematical Recreations
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Mathematics
label: See more items in
content: Science & Mathematics
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Dr. Judy Green
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2012.0091.04
label: accession number
content: 2012.0091
label: catalog number
content: 2012.0091.04
objectType: label: Object Name
content: puzzle
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: plastic (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 8.6 cm x 8.6 cm x 8.6 cm; 3 3/8 in x 3 3/8 in x 3 3/8 in
label: Measurements
content: overall: 8.6 cm x 8.6 cm x 8.6 cm; 3 3/8 in x 3 3/8 in x 3 3/8 in