His cube was one of the most popular and infuriating toys of all time. Now Professor Ernö Rubik is hoping that the sphere will bring sleepless nights to the world’s obsessive puzzlers.

The creator of Rubik’s Cube is back with his first new puzzle for almost 20 years and early indications are that it is going to be every bit as irritating as the original.

Rubik’s 360, which goes on sale next week, features six small balls inside three interlocking spheres. The task is to lock each ball into colour-coded capsules on the outermost sphere. Professor Rubik said of his cube that it was “easy to understand the task, but hard to work out the solution”. It is just as aggravating to crack the 360.

In The Times newsroom yesterday, the angry rattles of plastic pellets signified dozens of journalists failing to coax so much as one ball from the centre of the sphere.

Times Archive 1982 Rubik Cube laid bare in court

The cube was described as a toy of some intellectual standing that had reduced mathematicians to tears

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“You look at it and think, ‘It can’t be that hard’,” said David Hedley Jones, the senior vice-president of the Rubik brand. “But it is incredibly complicated — there are some really cunning tricks to it.”

Dan Harris, twice the British cube champion, is enthusiastic: “It looks pretty cool, is very tactile, and takes the same kind of physical dexterity and ‘touch’ as the cube,” he said.

“In terms of a mental challenge, it doesn’t compare, because there is only one configuration at the start, and one at the end.” But he added: “I think it has a much broader appeal. Most people who try the cube give up within a matter of days, but this is much easier, and more likely to keep people interested until they can solve it.”

Professor Rubik said that the 360 needed more manual dexterity than the original cube. “It’s a more kinetic challenge, more physical, because gravity is involved.”

Mr Hedley Jones acknowledged the task was initially very frustrating, but said: “Once you’ve learnt a few little tricks it becomes slightly easier.” Under conditions of strict secrecy, The Times was talked through the most basic of these tricks. All six balls remained resolutely in the middle.

Toy retailers anticipate that Britain is once again about to be gripped by Rubik’s fever. “It’s a great product. It’s going to be a strong seller for Christmas,” said Stuart Grant, buying director for The Entertainer shop chain.

Professor Rubik was a 30-year-old lecturer in the Academy of Applied Arts and Crafts in Budapest when he devised the cube in 1974 to teach his students about 3-D design. It took six years for it to leave the Eastern bloc, when it became an instant hit, selling in the tens of millions and permeating almost every home in Britain.

In The Times’s attempt to crack the 360, the first ball rolled into place after a mere five hours. This is unlikely to win a place at the first Rubik 360 tournament, in Düsseldorf in October. Mr Hedley Jones said that competition is likely to be fierce: “I’ve already seen someone do it in under a minute.”

Box of tricks

1974 invented by Erno Rubik in Budapest, Hungary

350m sold worldwide, enough to reach from pole to pole

7.08 seconds, the world record for completing the cube set in 2008

500kg weight of largest cube, three metres tall, on display in Tennessee

God’s algorithm name given to a 25-move solution, the shortest

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