Google celebrates the Rubik's Cube's 40th birthday with an interactive doodle

I’ve met and/or spent time with some famous icons over the years -- including drinking beer with the Sex Pistols in LA -- but oddly I’m most pleased to have met Alexey Pajitnov, the creator of Tetris, and Ernő Rubik, the man who invented the Rubik’s Cube (I didn’t meet them both at the same time, sadly -- that really would be a story).

Rubik’s most famous invention is forty years old today, and as clever and as frustratingly difficult to master as ever. When I was a kid, the only way I could crack it was by actually cracking it open. Popping the corners out, dismantling the cube and then reassembling it. Or cheating, as some people might say.

To celebrate the iconic cube’s 40th birthday, Google has come up with an interactive doodle. Click on it and you can rotate the cube, rotate the sides, and keep track of the number of moves taken to solve it.

The Google Doodle is a faithful recreation, although you can’t pop out the corners or remove and replace the stickers so I’m afraid I don’t think I’m going to be solving it any time soon.

Can you complete the Rubik’s Cube?