TOWER OF HANOI
The puzzle was invented by the French mathematician Edouard Lucas in 1883. There is a legend about an Indian temple which contains a large room with three time-worn posts in it surrounded by 64 golden discs. The priests of Brahma, acting out the command of an ancient prophecy, have been moving these discs, in accordance with the rules of the puzzle. According to the legend, when the last move of the puzzle is completed, the world will end. The puzzle is therefore also known as the Tower of Brahma puzzle. It is not clear whether Lucas invented this legend or was inspired by it.
For practical reasons a tower mostly consists of 8 discs, because then you could solve the puzzle within some 6 minutes. Every disc more doubles the minimum time to get to the solution.
If the legend were true, and if the priests were able to move discs at a rate of 1 per second, using the smallest number of moves, it would take them 264 − 1 seconds or roughly 585 billion years. The universe is currently about 13.7 billion years old.
Source: wikipedia.org
Tower of Hanoi
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