Larry D. Nichols Larry D. Nichols Larry D. Nichols, born 1939 in the United States, is a puzzle designer. He grew up in Xenia, Ohio, and studied chemistry at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, before moving to Massachusetts to attend Harvard Graduate School. He is best known for the invention of mechanical puzzles including 'The Nichols Cube Puzzle' (1974), patent US365520. He has lived with his wife Karen in Arlington, Massachusetts since 1959. In 1957, 17 years before Dr. Rubik’s invention popularly known as the “Rubik's Cube”, Dr. Nichols conceived of a twist cube puzzle with six colored faces. It was a 2×2×2
-gry puzzle the answer "gry," an obsolete unit of measure invented by John Locke. It is unclear whether this was the answer given on the Grant show, or what the precise wording had been. By fall 1975 the puzzle had reached the Delaware Valley, again apparently by radio, by which time the puzzle seems to have mutated to a form in which the missing word is an adjective that describes the state of the world. The puzzle has had occasional bouts of popularity: after its initial popularity in 1975, it was popular in 1978, then again in 1995–1996. The most credible report