Right from our childhood, we've learned that 'united we stand, divided we fall'.  We have listened to stories of the wise elder who showed his squabbling grandchildren the power of unity by asking them to snap sticks pulled out of a broom (which they do easily), and then, to attempt snapping the entire broom in half (which they cannot).  At work, the first thing that I read about grid computing was its basic premise: 'The whole is greater than the part', that when brought together, even the most mundane resources can become a force to be reckoned with.  These very lessons and premises were what came flooding to my mind when I set about repairing a Rubik's cube, today.

I'd bought a Rubik's cube, to pass time, an a recent train journey.  Unfortunately however, one of the blocks of the cube was incorrectly placed,  making the cube unsolvable.  I'd put away repairing it to another day. Today, I took it apart, to put it back together in the correct way.  As I was putting it back together,  I realized that the Rubik cube is a perfect example of strength derived out of structure.  What kept the individual blocks of the cube together? The blocks themselves!  The cube consists of a 'core', which has the centers of the six faces projecting outwards.  All the remaining pieces support each other and give the cube its structure and strength.  Pull away a single piece and the whole cube will become unstable and fall apart.  Makes me wonder if the whole universe is not really a gigantic cube, with zillions of individual blocks making it up.  We humans take pride in proclaiming ourselves masters of all that we see.  Do we really know the composition of the universe? And how our actions (and possibly non-actions) can affect its stability?




At the center lies the core of the cube, which consists of the centers of each face of the cube.


When the lowest layer is built, the cube is still very unstable and incapable of staying together.


As we start putting the second layer together, we begin to appreciate how the blocks provide support and strength, to each other.


Once the second layer is put together, the cube begins to look far more robust.


With most of the blocks in place, the cube looks almost completely sturdy.  The cut-away section reveals the inner structure of the cube.


The complete cube reiterates the fact that in unity lies strength, and that there is more to strength than what meets the eye.