How to Start

  The aim of the puzzle is to get the same formation of discs onto another post. Choose the number of discs to play with, the more you have the harder the puzzle. To play, tap or click on each disc you want to move, which highlights it, and then on the post you want it to move to. The only rule is that no disc can be placed above a smaller disc!

Hint: With eight discs expect to take over 200 moves. Perhaps start with a small number of disks. If you are really struggling, tap or click on Solve to see how it works.

History

  The puzzle was invented by a French mathematician, Edouard Lucas, and sold as a toy in 1883. It was said to be invented by 'Prof.Claus' of the College of 'Li-Sou-Stian' but these were soon discovered to be anagrams for 'Prof.Lucas' at the College of 'Saint Louis'. The "legend" which accompanied the puzzle stated that, at the time of creation, in the great temple of Brahma in Benares, on a brass plate under the dome that marks the center of the world, there was a pile of 64 disks of pure gold. The monks were instructed to move the sacred disks from one location to another. The disks are fragile, only one can be carried at a time and a disk may not be placed on top of a smaller, less valuable disk. There is only one other location in the temple (besides the original and destination locations) sacred enough that a pile of disks can be placed there. It is said that when the last disk is finally in place, once again forming the tower, the temple will turn to dust and the world will end.

Since it would take 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 (over 18 quintillion) moves to complete the task, assuming the monks made one move every second, working night and day, and no wrong moves, it would take almost 585,000,000,000 years to complete and it seems likely that the prophecy will be fulfilled!