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**The cube from hell!
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Thought you knew everything about the Rubik’s Cube? Then you had not reckoned with Grégoire Pfennig’s recent invention: a cube measuring… 33 × 33 × 33. It is currently the largest ever built, surpassing Dutchman Oskar van Deventer’s cube, which had "only" 17 × 17 × 17 square faces.
Its inventor explains that a 3D printer took no fewer than 205 hours to produce all 6,153 pieces. He personally stuck 6,534 colored labels onto the various faces.
The 3 × 3 × 3 cube already offered no fewer than 12! × 8! × 37 × 210 (approximately 4.3 × 1019 ) combinations, but the family’s latest arrival boasts around 1.8 × 104,099. As its designer puts it: "I have designed something beyond even my own powers. I wouldn’t risk scrambling it and then having to solve it!" Hardly surprising…
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**Precious triangles
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The triangle seems to be the latest fashion among lovers of fine gemstones. Many jewelry designers are now embracing the so-called "trillion" cut for diamonds and other precious stones: the stone is triangular, and the cut generally gives it thirty-three facets, with slightly rounded corners to soften its outline. Created in Amsterdam in the 1970s, this cut is based on the "brilliant" cut, which originally had fifty-eight facets, but was generally reserved for stones containing a few inclusions. The geometry of the triangle and its many applications still has plenty to amaze us.
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**The elegance of numbers in ready-to-wear fashion
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Why not wear arithmetic slung over your shoulder this winter, neither flaunting it nor feeling ashamed, as on this "graphic" sweater? Ever daring, fashion house COP.COPINE has no hesitation in offering it, with black velvet digits against an anthracite background. Apparently, digits can even be paired with letters. Will these designs inspire lovers of calculations, whether simple or convoluted?
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**Beyond the looking glass
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This strange mirror unmistakably evokes our favorite geometric figures: the circle, rectangle, and triangle. Designed for ENO Studio by British designer Sam Baron, does it not reflect our fascination with these simple geometric shapes, which also allow the very function of the mirror to be reimagined? All the more so because the Prego mirror has three mounting points, allowing it to be hung in three different ways. As we said, geometry still has surprises in store…
