There are some poles, and on the first pole are some rings, each a different size. The sizes of the rings increases from the top to the bottom of the pole. The only allowable move is to take the top ring from any pole and place onto another pole. You cannot place a ring on top of another ring unless the other ring is exactly one size bigger. You can make as many moves as you like.
Your goal is to move all the rings onto the second pole, in the same order. What is the highest number of rings that can be moved when there are N poles? How can you move this many rings?
I have seen this before although not quite posed in this manner. Without checking, I'm thinking this is called a Hanoi puzzle or Hanoi Tower. I can't speak for now, but back in the day it was a pupular toy for children. I can remember when I played with the most basic version with only two poles and a few rings.
I'll have to think about it some more, but if I did it at 7 or 8 how hard can it be?
Edited on May 3, 2005, 5:11 pm
Hanoi
