Do you know the history of the Megaminx?

I never knew these things! Interesting.

The Megaminx or Mégaminx (/ˈmɛɡəmɪŋks//ˈmeɪ-/) is a dodecahedron-shaped puzzle similar to the Rubik’s Cube. It has a total of 50 movable pieces to rearrange, compared to the 20 movable pieces of the Rubik’s Cube.

History

The Megaminx, or Magic Dodecahedron, was invented by several people independently and produced by several different manufacturers with slightly different designs. Uwe Mèffert eventually bought the rights to some of the patents and continues to sell it in his puzzle shop under the Megaminx moniker.[1] It is also known by the name Hungarian Supernova, invented by Dr. Christoph Bandelow.[2] His version came out first, shortly followed by Mèffert’s Megaminx. The proportions of the two puzzles are slightly different. The Supernova is cut in such a way that the cuts on each face meet at the edges, forming a pentagram. Mèffert’s Megaminx has somewhat wider edges relative to the corners.

Speed-solving the Megaminx became an official World Cube Association event in 2003, with the first official single-solve record set by American Grant Tregay with a time of 2 minutes 12.82 seconds during the World Rubik’s Games Championship in Canada. The first sub-minute solve in official competition was achieved by Japanese solver Takumi Yoshida with a time of 59.33s at the January 2009 Amagasaki Open, and the first sub-30-second single solve was achieved by Peruvian solver Juan Pablo Huanqui at a 2017 Santiago event with a time of 29.93 seconds. The current world record time for a Megaminx solve is 23.18 seconds, set by Leandro Martín López of Argentina on 13 April 2024 [3]

Quite amazing when you think of how Singapore had a World Record holder (Tristan Chua Yong) a few years ago, and has the current Female World Record single-solve holder (Beth Lee).

Can you spot the Megaminx?

What could Minx mean?

Some online searching dredges up a few theories.

“Meffert maybe just called it the pyraminx when he created it and the name has caught on with other puzzles.”

“When he bought the patent to a dodecahedron puzzle, he named it Megaminx for continuity.”

“It means “non cuboid puzzle. Think about this, pyraminx is a pyramid, megaminx and kilominx are dodecahedrons, a sq-one is a cube in it’s solved state so it’s not a “minx”.”

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