Hungarian ingenuity: from the Rubik’s Cube to the ballpoint pen

About Hungarian ingenuity: from the Rubik’s Cube to the ballpoint pen

By the ULTIMATE Budapest Editorial Team

Hungarians have given the world a long list of inventions and discoveries: the Rubik’s Cube, the modern ballpoint pen, the carburettor, holography and the isolation of vitamin C among them. Many began in Budapest workshops, laboratories and cafés.

The cube

In 1974, Ernő Rubik, a young lecturer in design and architecture in Budapest, made a wooden cube of twisting blocks to explain spatial problems to his students. As the Magic Cube, later the Rubik’s Cube, it became one of the best-selling toys in history.

Pens, matches and engines

In the 1830s, János Irinyi invented a noiseless match; in 1893, Donát Bánki and János Csonka patented a carburettor; and in the 1930s, the Budapest journalist László Bíró developed the modern ballpoint pen, still called a “biro” in many countries. Tivadar Puskás, who worked with Edison, launched the Telefon Hírmondó, a telephone news service, in Budapest in 1893.

Ernő Rubik built the first cube in 1974 to help explain three-dimensional space to his students.

Science and Nobel Prizes

Albert Szent-Györgyi identified vitamin C and produced it from Szeged paprika, and won the Nobel Prize in 1937; Dennis Gabor, born in Budapest, won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1971 for inventing holography.

Where to see it

The János Csonka memorial exhibition in Buda shows engines and cars, the Electrotechnical Museum in the Jewish Quarter displays early electrical inventions, and the Pinball Museum is a hands-on delight.

Our advice: buy a Rubik’s Cube as a souvenir, and if you are travelling with children, combine the Pinball Museum with a ride on the Children’s Railway in the Buda Hills.

Opening hours, prices and seasonal openings change, so please check with Hungarian ingenuity: from the Rubik’s Cube to the ballpoint pen before you go.