can anybody explain in detail the Tower of Hanoi?

Answer 1

Ah, yes. The Tower of Hanoi. Only please now to call it The Tower of Ho Chi Min City.

The puzzle consists of three posts, and eight disks of different diameters. The disks have a hole in the center so they can be stacked on the posts. The puzzle starts out with all eight disks stacked on one post with the largest disk at the bottom and the smallest at the top.

The object of the puzzle is to transfer the entire stack to another post in the smallest number of moves following these extremely arduous rules:

1. You may transfer only one disk at a time from one post to another.

2. At no time can a larger disk rest upon a smaller one.

This means that your first move must be to transfer the smallest disk onto another post. The second move is to transfer the second-largest disk onto the third, still unused, post. Where you go from there is your business. Good luck.

(Hint: try the puzzle first with only three disks, then with four. You will see the binary pattern of the solution, and you may even be able to work out the formula that relates the number of disks to the smallest number of moves needed to solve.)

Answer 2

The Tower of Hanoi.

Tis an evil place. Death and suffering surround it on all sides. The wails of men crying in pain sails with the wind near the evil structure. Tis an evil place.

Three hundred Marines approached the tower early one morn, crouching, trying not to be seen, as the mist rose from the damp jungle floor. Inside the tower was an equal number of NVA regulars and they saw the Marines' approach. The element of surprise sat not with the attackers, but oddly enough with the defenders.

Nearby, jungle birds sang out their calls. Insects chirped. Monkeys screamed. Suddenly--silence fell upon the battleground like a hammer. The 300 Americans froze in their tracks, afraid to even blink. They sensed the worst was almost upon them.

Well,....is that a good start at explaining the Tower of Hanoi, or would you like to read more?

Answer 3

It's a problem that's used to illustrate problem-solving algorithms in computer science. "The tower of Hanoi (commonly also known as the "towers of Hanoi"), is a puzzle invented by E. Lucas in 1883. Given a stack of disks arranged from largest on the bottom to smallest on top placed on a rod, together with two empty rods, the towers of Hanoi puzzle asks for the minimum number of moves required to move the stack from one rod to another, where moves are allowed only if they place smaller disks on top of larger disks. The puzzle with pegs and disks is sometimes known as Reve's puzzle."

Answer 4

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

The object of the game is to move the entire stack to another peg, obeying the following rules:

only one disc may be moved at a time
no disc may be placed on top of a smaller disc

Answer 5

3 posts

64 disks

The disks are stacked on one post, largest on the bottom to smallest on top (like a pyramid).

The goal is to move the entire stack to another post. The rules are:
1. Only one disk at a time shall be moved
2. A disk cannot be placed on another disk if it is larger than the disk at the top of the stack (or in other words, only smaller disks can sit on top of larger disks)

The mathematical calculation for number of moves need is (2^64)-1 (or 2 to the 64th power minus 1).

Using 8 disks would take 2^8-1 or 255 moves
using 9 disks would take 2^9-1 or 511 moves
using 10 disks would take 2^10-1 or 1023 moves
and so on...

It is believed that in heaven, when god makes the final move, the world will end. As you can calculate, 1 second per move would give us all a LOT of time!

Answer 6

Since everyone is answering so completely I won't be
redundant. But I will comment on the introduction from
Gary popkin. His reference to Ho Chi Minh City is
wrong. Hanoi is the capital of North Viet Nam. Saigon
is the former name of the capital of South Viet Nam and
was renamed to Ho Chi Minh City after the Communists took over. So there is still a Hanoi.

Answer 7

We are given a tower of eight disks initially stacked in increasing size on one of three pegs. The objective is to transfer the entire tower to one of the other pegs , moving only one disk at a time and never a larger one onto a smaller.

The puzzle is well known to students of Computer Science.It is one of the best examples to explain recursive functions and stacks.