| In the great temple at
Benares beneath the dome that marks the centre of the world,
rests a brass plate in which are fixed three diamond needles,
each a cubit high and as thick as the body of a bee. On one of
these needles, at the creation, God place sixty-four discs of
pure gold, the largest disk resting on the brass plate, and the
others getting smaller and smaller up to the top one. This is
the tower of Bramah. Day and night unceasingly the priest transfer
the discs from one diamond needle to another according to the
fixed and immutable laws of Bramah, which require that the priest
on duty must not move more than one disc at a time and that he
must place this disc on a needle so that there is no smaller
disc below it. When the sixty-four discs shall have been thus
transferred from the needle which at creation God placed them
to one of the other needles, tower, temple, and Brahmins alike
will crumble into dust and with a thunderclap the world will
vanish. |
| The number of separate
transfers of single discs which the Brahmins must make to effect
the transfer of the tower is two raised to the sixty-fourth power
minus 1 or 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 moves. Even if the priests
move one disk every second, it would take more than 500 billion
years to relocate the initial tower of 64 disks. |
|