History Of Towers Of Hanoi
If you love puzzles and want to spend your time deciphering a mathematical game, you will love the Tower of Hanoi. In fact, there are many kids who can spend hours trying to work out this puzzle and it also keeps them out of mischief. Isn't that what all parents want. The puzzle has three rods on a base and several disks of varying sizes. Each disk has a hole in the middle, like a doughnut. The idea is to place the disks on a rod, with the biggest occupying the place at the bottom and the smallest on top. |
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The person has to move the entire set of disks from one rod to another while ensuring that the rules of the game are followed. The rules dictate that just one disk can be moved at one time; only the upper disk can be moved; and the disk have to be placed in an ascending order. So, this game requires a person to think and then move the disks. Otherwise, the game has to start from scratch.
According to legends, there used to be a temple in the city of Benares that had a dome. This dome was the spot which marked the center of the world. It is believed that when God created the world, he placed 64 gold disks on a needlepoint. The task of the priests in the temple was to move the disks between the different needles and it was believed that when the priest completed this movement, the world would come to an end. Based on the number of moves required to move all the disks, it was estimated that it would take nearly 585 billion years for the priests to move all the 64 gold disks. As this puzzle took place in a Hindu temple, it is also known as Tower of Brahma, after the Hindu god who created the universe.
However, the Tower of Hanoi as a game was brought into the market by Francois Lucas, who was a French mathematician, in the year 1883. The game came into existence in the year 1883. However, it is debatable whether Lucas was instrumental in starting the legend about how the Tower of Hanoi came into being or whether he invented the game based on the legend. In fact, there are different variations of the legend. In some legends, the temple was located in the city of Hanoi in Vietnam, while in others in some other part of the world. Also, in some legends, it is stated that the temple priests could just move one disk per day.
Then a simpler version of the game was introduced by Cardano Lucas. This version used three pegs and 8 disks. The rules of the game were the same as those introduced by Francois Lucas. Cardano was responsible for narrating the legend and often called him self N Claus of Siam.
In psychological research, the puzzle is used to find out more about problem solving. Another variation of the puzzle is called Tower of London. This variation is used to diagnose neuropsychological problems in a person. You may be surprised to learn that the puzzle has also uses in information technology. It is used for backup rotation scheme when data in the computer is backed up. This is usually used when several media are there.
The first mention of the Tower of Hanoi was made in 1550 when an Italian mathematician named Girolamo Cardano first made reference to it, when Far East was still a mysterious place for the West. So, while the history of the Tower of Hanoi is old as game, the legend related to the game is still older.
More Articles :
Wikipedia: Tower Of Hanoi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Hanoi
SuperKids: Towers Of Hanoi
http://www.superkids.com/aweb/tools/logic/towers/
Learning Space: The Tower of Hanoi and the Experience of Lived Number
http://learningspaces.org/n/papers/rethinking_tower.pdf
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