
How can you solve the Tower of Hanoi?
What will we cover in this tutorial?
- Understand the Tower of Hanoi challenge Tower of Hanoi is a mathematical game, which has three rules. ...
- Recall recursion and unleash the power of it Recursion is a method of solving a problem where the solution depends on solutions to smaller instances of the same ...
- Implement Tower of Hanoi with a recursive function
How to solve Tower of Hanoi?
solving the tower of hanoi through recursion To move the N discs from pole A to pole B with the help of pole C, start by moving the top N-1 discs from pole A to pole C (the recursive bit that uses the same algorithm applied to a smaller number of discs; then move the largest disc from pole A to pole B; and then move the smallest N-1 discs from pole C to pole B (a second repetition of the recursive bit).
Can you solve the Tower of Hanoi?
You then repeat this process, dividing the pile into two twenties, two tens, and so on, until you narrow it down to the one coin. The Tower of Hanoi can be solved using recursion too, which helps mathematicians find the way to solve the puzzle in the fewest number of steps possible.
How to build the Tower of Hanoi?
Wooden Puzzles that are Quick to Make: The Tower of Hanoi
- History of the Tower of Hanoi wooden puzzles. The Tower of Hanoi is a brain teaser first produced by French mathematician Édouard Lucas in 1883. ...
- Making the Tower of Hanoi. I chose a piece of oak pallet wood for my base. ...
- Turning the wooden discs. I turned the discs on a mini-lathe. ...
- Assemble the wooden puzzle. ...
- Build your inventory. ...

Why is it called Towers of Hanoi?
This monastery is seen to be found in many parts of the world with a main presence in Hanoi, Vietnam (thus the name).
What is Tower of Hanoi formula?
The original Tower of Hanoi puzzle, invented by the French mathematician Edouard Lucas in 1883, spans "base 2". That is – the number of moves of disk number k is 2^(k-1), and the total number of moves required to solve the puzzle with N disks is 2^N - 1.
How does Hanoi Tower Work?
The objective of the game is to shift the entire stack of disks from one rod to another rod following these three rules : Only one disk can be moved at a time. Only the uppermost disk from one stack can be moved on to the top of another stack or an empty rod. Larger disks cannot be placed on the top of smaller disks.
What does the Tower of Hanoi measure?
The Towers of Hanoi and London are presumed to measure executive functions such as planning and working memory. Both have been used as a putative assessment of frontal lobe function.
How do you solve the Tower of Hanoi problem?
Only one disk can be moved at a time. Each move consists of taking the upper disk from one of the stacks and placing it on top of another stack i.e. a disk can only be moved if it is the uppermost disk on a stack. No disk may be placed on top of a smaller disk.
What is the algorithm of the Tower of Hanoi for 5 disks?
In this formula, S is the number of steps, and N is the number of discs. So, if the tower had five discs, the formula would be 25-1, which is 31. Therefore, solving the puzzle would take a minimum of 31 steps.
How does Tower of Hanoi count steps?
Tower of Hanoi puzzle with n disks can be solved in minimum 2n−1 steps. This presentation shows that a puzzle with 3 disks has taken 23 - 1 = 7 steps....RulesOnly one disk can be moved among the towers at any given time.Only the "top" disk can be removed.No large disk can sit over a small disk.
How do you solve the Tower of Hanoi with 8 discs?
The puzzle of the Tower of Hanoi is widely believed to have been invented in 1883 by... It can be shown that for a tower of n disks, there will be required 2n − 1 transfers of individual disks to shift the tower completely to another peg. Thus for 8 disks, the puzzle requires 28 − 1, or 255 transfers.
What is the mission of Tower of Hanoi?
The mission is to move all the disks to some another tower without violating the sequence of arrangement. A few rules to be followed for Tower of Hanoi are −
How many rings are there in Tower of Hanoi?
Tower of Hanoi, is a mathematical puzzle which consists of three towers (pegs) and more than one rings is as depicted −. These rings are of different sizes and stacked upon in an ascending order, i.e. the smaller one sits over the larger one. There are other variations of the puzzle where the number of disks increase, ...
How many disks can be moved in a tower?
Only one disk can be moved among the towers at any given time.
What is the Tower of Hanoi?
The Tower Of Hanoi is one of the most classic problems of recursion. Through this problem, you can see how recursion works.
How many pegs are there in Tower of Hanoi?
The game of Tower of Hanoi consists of three pegs or towers along with ‘N’ number of Discs. The game’s objective is to move all the Discs from Tower A to Tower B with the help of Tower C.
How many moves to shift from tower A to tower B?
For N = 3, the minimum number of moves required to shift from tower A to tower B is 7.
How many towers are there in the Tower of Hanoi?
Tower of Hanoi is a mathematical puzzle which consists of three towers (or pegs) and n disks of different sizes, numbered from 1, the smallest disk, to n, the largest disk.
What is the time complexity of the recursive solution of Tower of Hanoi?
Hence, the time complexity of the recursive solution of Tower of Hanoi is O (2n) which is exponential.
What is Tower of Hanoi?from proprogramming.org
The Tower of Hanoi (also called the Tower of Brahma or Lucas’ Tower, and sometimes pluralized) is a mathematical game or puzzle.
How many sides does the magnetic tower of Hanoi have?from en.wikipedia.org
In Magnetic Tower of Hanoi, each disk has two distinct sides North and South (typically colored "red" and "blue"). Disks must not be placed with the similar poles together—magnets in each disk prevent this illegal move. Also, each disk must be flipped as it is moved.
How many rods are there in the Tower of Hanoi?from tutorialspoint.com
The tower of Hanoi is a mathematical puzzle. It consists of three rods and a number of disks of different sizes which can slide onto any rod. The puzzle starts with the disks in a neat stack in ascending order of size on one rod, the smallest at the top. We have to obtain the same stack on the third rod.
How many pieces are there in the Tower of Hanoi game?from en.wikipedia.org
In the 1966 Doctor Who story The Celestial Toymaker, the eponymous villain forces the Doctor to play a ten-piece 1,023-move Tower of Hanoi game entitled The Trilogic Game with the pieces forming a pyramid shape when stacked.
What direction is the disk in cyclic Hanoi?from en.wikipedia.org
In Cyclic Hanoi, we are given three pegs (A, B, C), which are arranged as a circle with the clockwise and the counterclockwise directions being defined as A – B – C – A and A – C – B – A respectively. The moving direction of the disk must be clockwise. It suffices to represent the sequence of disks to be moved. The solution can be found using two mutually recursive procedures:
How many towers are there in the Tower of Hanoi?
The Tower of Hanoi is a mathematical Puzzle that consists of three towers (pegs) and multiple disks. Initially, all the disks are placed on one rod. And this disks are arranged on one over the other in ascending order of size.
Where did the Tower of Hanoi originate?
There is one history behind Tower Of Hanoi is, It is originated from an ancient legend from Vietnam, according to which a group of monks is moving around a tower of 64 disks of different sizes according to certain rules.

Introduction to Tower of Hanoi
History of Tower of Hanoi
- First, let’s talk about the history of the Tower of Hanoi puzzle. It is said that the Tower Of Hanoi is based on a story about an ancient temple of India, which is located in Kashi-Vishwanath. This temple contains a large room with three towers which is surrounded by 64 golden sticks. These sticks are continuously moved by some Brahmin priests. The...
About The Game
- The game of Tower of Hanoi consists of three pegs or towers along with ‘N’ number of Discs. The game’s objective is to move all the Discs from Tower A to Tower B with the help of Tower C. The rules which were designed for the puzzle are: 1. Only one Disc can be moved at a time. 2. No larger Disc can be placed over a smaller Disc. This problem will be solved with the help of recur…
Recursion
- Recursion refers to a function calling itself. Recursion basically solves such types of problems that require repetition in the process. Apart from this, many things should be taken care of in the recursive problem. 1. Base Case – It is the smallest valid case for the problem at which the recursion terminates. 2. Smaller problem – The bigger problem is broken down into smaller prob…
Algorithm
- Now let’s try recursion in solving the problem “Tower Of Hanoi.” Let us try to understand it with an example of 2 Discs. 1. Move Disc 1 from tower A to tower C. 2. Move Disc 2 from tower A to tower B. 3. Move Disc 1 from tower C to tower A. Tower A Tower B Tower C We can see that three moves will be required to shift 2 Discs from tower A to tower B with the help of an intermediary t…
Approach For The Recursive Code
- After going through the discussion on the Algorithm above, you can try to write the recursive code by following the below-mentioned steps: 1. Create a function, let’s say towerOfHanoi() with integer variable ‘N’ representing the number of discs, three-character variables, say ‘source,’ ‘dest’ and ‘inter’ representing source, destination, and intermediate positions. 2. Design a base Case for th…
Mathematical Analysis
- Let us now analyze the minimum number of moves required to shift all discs from tower A to tower B. We can observe the following things from the above discussion: 1. For N = 1, the minimum number of moves required to shift from tower A to tower B is 1. 2. For N = 2, the minimum number of moves required to shift from tower A to tower B is 3. 3. For N = 3, the minimum number of mo…
Key Takeaways
- In this article, we discussed the famous mathematical puzzle Tower of Hanoi and the approach to solving it. We also analyzed the mathematical expression for the minimum moves to shift ‘N’ discs from source to destination. The approach is based upon the recursion. To read more about recursion, visit this link. You can also try solving problems on CodeStudio. If you think that this bl…