O O O
 O O O
O O O

nearby pennies touching. By the fewest number of legal moves, transform the pattern into the pattern

   O
  O O
 O   O
O O O O

nearby pennies touching. A legal move consists of sliding a penny, not picking up a penny, without disturbing the other pennies, to a new position touching at least two pennies.

The problem is that moving 5 to e would disturb 2 and 9 as they are too close together to allow this passage.

Posted by Charlie on 2005-06-09 14:14:44