Cracking the Cube

Ian Scheffler, journalist and aspiring “speedcuber,” attempts to break into the international phenomenon of speedsolving the Rubik’s Cube—think chess played at the speed of Ping-Pong—while exploring the greater lessons that can be learned through solving it.

When Hungarian professor Ernő Rubik invented the Rubik’s Cube (or, rather, his Cube) in 1974 out of wooden blocks, rubber bands, and paper cli...