Tower of Hanoi

From the virtual world we go into a more physical puzzle, this time we're going to talk about another well known puzzle, the Tower of Hanoi.

The Tower of Hanoi is a mathematical puzzle, meaning, if you use math you win, or at least it's advised to have a sort of logical path to follow or you'll take way more time than you should.

As for the origin of the puzzle it is said to have been invented by a French mathematician, Édouard Lucas in 1883. There seems to be a legend associated with it as well, maybe created by Lucas himself:

There is a legend about an Indian temple which contains a large room with three time-worn posts in it surrounded by 64 golden disks. Brahmin priests, acting out the command of an ancient prophecy, have been moving these disks, in accordance with the rules of the puzzle, since that time. The puzzle is therefore also known as the Tower of Brahma puzzle. According to the legend, when the last move of the puzzle is completed, the world will end.

General view:

Objective:

The objective is very simple using the 3 rods given, it is required to move the disks from the left most to the right most rod. When all the disks are moved and are in the exact order as they started, meaning, from top to bottom in ascending order, you solve the puzzle.

Difficulty:

It would be a pretty simple puzzle if you only had to move them around the rods, well there's a couple of rules to take into account and that's what makes the puzzle challenging to solve, at least until you apply a solving algorithm. Basically you can't place a bigger disk on top of a smaller one but the contrary is allowed, which means you have to take into consideration where to put or not the next disk you want to move. Besides this rule you can only move one disk at a time, meaning there's no mass relocation anytime.

Variations:

Variations of this puzzle are basically an increase of the number of rings to move, the rods stay the same 3.

Benefits from Tower of Hanoi:

It's a good way to exercise one's problem-solving skills as it uses the brain's executive funcions. The area of the brain used is also important for higher cognitive functions and determination of personality.



Puzzler Approved!


(Partial source)

Posted in: mathematical, puzzle