| 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 placed 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. |
|
The
Tower of Hanoi Story