Mere days after photos of a 35x35 surfaced, Preston Alden has unveiled a 49x49:
It weighs 30 kg, stands 34 cm tall, and consists of 13,827 pieces. Every piece of the cube was 3D printed using PETG plastic (aside from the bolts and springs).
Congratulations to Preston on such an incredible achievement. I've never seen olzing on such a large puzzle!
More info on the twistypuzzles forum: https://twistypuzzles.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=39559
At 30 kg, it doesn't sound like a thing that anyone could reasonably play, which might answer the "why not?". But I learned from this response that the inventor of the Rubik's cube was not named Rubik, as I had assumed, so thanks and cheers👍
Edit: nvm, I looked that up and immediately ruined it for myself. Erno was his first name and Rubik was in fact his surname. Still, learning new things is fun.
To me the why/why not is more that it's an engineering problem rather than using it to reasonably play. At least personally that's where I find it interesting.
That's entirely fair, and to call out my own argument, not every human endeavor needs to (or should) have a utilitarian purpose. Doing stuff just because it's interesting to an individual often is generally good for the greater society.
I doubt my usual strategy of pulling the stickers off to put them in the right position would work with this beast.