Upon completion, the world will end

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• Upon completion, the world will end

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History

• The Tower of Hanoi puzzle was invented by the
  French mathematician Edouard Lucas in 1883. Lucas
  is also known for his study of the Fibonacci
  sequence. The related Lucas sequence is named
  after him. He gave a formula for finding the nth
  term of the Fibonacci sequence.
• Lucas was educated at the Ecole Superieure. He
  worked in the Paris observatory and later became
  a professor of mathematics in Paris. In the
  meantime he served in the army.

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What is It?

• The Tower of Hanoi or Towers of Hanoi is a
  mathematical game or puzzle. It consists of three
  pegs, and a number of disks of different sizes
  which can slide onto any peg. The puzzle starts
  with the disks neatly stacked in order of size on
  one peg, smallest at the top, thus making a
  conical shape.
• The objective of the game is to move the entire
  stack to another peg.

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The Rules

• Only one disk may be moved at a time.
• Each move consists of taking the upper disk from
  one of the pegs and sliding it onto another peg,
  on top of the other disks that may already be
  present on that peg.
• No disk may be placed on top of a smaller disk.

Sound Simple???
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The Solution
This illustration shows the solution to the
puzzle of the Tower of Hanoi using half the
number of discs for a quicker demonstration.
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• The Legend

There is a legend about an Indian temple that
contains a large room with three time-worn posts
in it surrounded by 64 golden discs. The priests
of Brahma, acting on an ancient prophecy, have
been moving these discs in accordance with the
rules of the puzzle. Legend has it that when the
last move of the puzzle is complete, the world
will end. This legend accredits the puzzles
alternate name The Tower of Brahma. According
to calculations, the process of moving all of the
discs without breaking the rules of the puzzle
would take 586.549 billion years. The earth is
currently approximately 13.7 billion years old.
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Applications

• Used in psychological research on Problem Solving
• Used as Backup Rotation Scheme when performing
  computer data backups.
• Popular for teaching recursive algorithms to
  beginning programming students
• Used as a memory test by neuropsychologists
  trying to evaluate amnesia
• Used for fun in Math class after you finish a
  test!

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Current World

• Where have YOU seen the Tower of Hanoi? If you
  have played any of these video games, you may be
  quite familiar with it!

Black White The Island of Dr. Brain The Secret
Island of Dr. Quandary Star Wars Knights of the
Old Republic Zork Zero The Legend of Kyrandia
Hand of Fate