Tower Of Hanoi

Tower of Hanoi (which also goes by other names like Tower of Brahma or The Lucas Tower), is a recreational mathematical puzzle that was publicized and popularized by the French mathematician Edouard Lucas in the year 1883.

Move the rings to the rightmost rod by dragging them with the mouse, read below for detailed instructions on how to play and solve ths puzzle.

How To Play

The goal of the game is to move all the rings to the right-most rod. The rules are simple:

• You can only move 1 ring at a time.
• a ring cannot be put on top of a smaller ring.

At the start of the game, one of the rods is stacked with the rings, starting from the smallest to the biggest ring. The challenge lies in moving this conical arrangement to another rod.
Only one disk can be moved at a time, and they all need to be moved to another rod, preserving the conical arrangement.

A Brief History

There are several mathematical puzzles that have captivated, intrigued and delighted us in equal measures, over time. These are popularly known to be a part of the branch of mathematics known as "recreational mathematics". Famous examples of these are the Conway’s Game of life (a cellular automaton), the Monty Hall problem (a probability puzzle, which is characteristically also similar to a veridical paradox), Bertrand’s Box problem and Fractals. The Tower of Hanoi is one such mathematical game. It is also known as the Tower of Brahma or the Lucas Tower.

How, when, and where did it all begin.

This puzzle is of unconfirmed origins, with many legends presenting different stories about where it came from. But it is generally accepted that it was brought into the limelight, not only to the community of mathematicians, but also to the general public by Edouard Lucas, a French mathematician, in the year 1883.

It is not clear if Lucas invented the puzzle himself or if he was inspired by the legends that shroud the source of the puzzle. The game consists of three rods, and a certain number of rings (of increasing diameter) which can be slipped onto these rods. The original puzzle was supposed to have sixty four disks. At the start of the game, the rings are neatly stacked on top of each other, all on one rod (thus making a conical arrangement, with the biggest disk at the bottom).