Puzzle, Skewb
date: label: Date made
content: 1982
name: label: maker
content: Meffert, Uwe
notes: label: Description
content: The faces of this cube are blue, orange, green, pink, yellow and white. Each face is divided into a central square and four surrounding isosceles right triangles. The puzzle was invented by Tony Durham of England and marketed by Uwe Meffert of Germany.
label: Description
content: Unlike the Rubik’s Cube, moves do not rotate a single face of the cube. Rather, each rotation divides the cube into two congruent polyhedra that meet in a regular hexagon. The edges of that hexagon trace the hypotenuses of the right triangles on adjacent faces of the cube. The mechanism used is different from that used in the Rubik’s Cube.
label: Description
content: Meffert had earlier developed the Pyraminx, a twisting puzzle shaped as a regular tetrahedron, a pyramid with four faces that are all equilateral triangles, and called this puzzle a Pyraminx Cube. The name Skewb was suggested by Douglas Hofstadter an 1982 article in <I>Scientific American</I>.
label: Description
content: For more information about the Rubik’s Cube and other twisting puzzles that use the same or similar mechanisms see 1987.0805.01.
label: Description
content: Reference:
label: Description
content: Douglas R. Hofstadter, “METAMAGICAL THEMAS: Beyond Rubik’s Cube: spheres, pyramids, dodecahedrons and God knows what else,” <I>Scientific American</I>, vol. 247, #1, July, 1982, pp. 16-31, esp. p. 20.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
topic: label: Subject
content: Mathematical Recreations
label: Subject
content: Mathematics
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Mathematics
label: See more items in
content: Science & Mathematics
label: See more items in
content: Twisting Puzzles
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Cecil Smith
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2006.0061.15
label: catalog number
content: 2006.0061.15
label: accession number
content: 2006.0061
objectType: label: Object Name
content: puzzle
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: paper (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: plastic (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: metal (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 5.5 cm x 5.5 cm x 5.5 cm; 2 5/32 in x 2 5/32 in x 2 5/32 in