Snake cube Snake cube The snake cube is a mechanical puzzle, a chain of 27 or 64 cubelets, connected by an elastic band running through them. The cubelets can rotate freely. The aim of the puzzle is to arrange the chain in such a way that they will form 3 x 3 x 3 or 4 x 4 x 4 cube. A variation on the puzzle is a Kibble cube, which is also a string of cubes but has slots on the cubes. There are also many different styles of the cube. It can be made up of wood or plastic and
Doubling the cube was the discovery by Hippocrates of Chios that it is equivalent to finding two mean proportionals between a line segment and another with twice the length. In modern notation, this means that given segments of lengths and , the duplication of the cube is equivalent to finding segments of lengths and so that In turn, this means that But Pierre Wantzel proved in 1837 that the cube root of 2 is not constructible; that is, it cannot be constructed with straightedge and compass. Menaechmus' original solution involves the intersection of two conic curves. Other more complicated methods of doubling the