Legend In the great temple of Brahma in Benares, on a brass plate under the dome that marks the center of the world, there are 64 disks of pure gold that the priests carry one at a time between these diamond needles according to Brahma's immutable law: No disk may be placed on a smaller disk. In the begging of the world all 64 disks formed the Tower of Brahma on one needle. Now, however, the process of transfer of the tower from one needle to another is in mid course. When the last disk is finally in place, once again forming the Tower of Brahma but on a different needle, then will come the end of the world and all will turn to dust.

Puzzel The Tower of Hanoi puzzle was invented by the French mathematician Edouard Lucas in 1883. We are given a tower of eight disks (3-7 in the applet above), initially stacked in decreasing 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.

Facts Number of moves formula: 2x - 1 with x >= 0 If you move one disk every second, 3 disks will take: 7 seconds 7 disks will take: 127 seconds 64 disks will take: 584.942.417.355 years to complete!