UCLA Olga Radko Endowed Math Circle

11/6/2011 -- Early Elementary Circle: Hanoi Tower Puzzle (taught by Oleg Gleizer)

The Tower of Hanoi or Towers of Hanoi , also called the Tower of Brahma or Towers of Brahma, is a mathematical game or 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, thus making a conical shape. The objective of the puzzle is to move the entire stack to another rod, obeying the following rules: * Only one disk may be moved at a time. * Each move consists of taking the upper disk from one of the rods and sliding it onto another rod, on top of the other disks that may already be present on that rod. * No disk may be placed on top of a smaller disk.