You have quarters laid out in the following pattern on the left and you want to move quarters to form the pattern on the right.

  Q      Q Q
 Q Q    Q   Q
Q Q Q    Q Q

Before| |After

The only rule is you must slide a coin without moving any others, such that the coin's ending location touches two other quarters. This means the following moves are illegal:

 A 1     Moving C to 1    
B C D 2  Moving B to 2  
 E F 

What is the shortest solution?

(In reply to Maybe I'm missing something but..... by DuCk)

maybe i'm missing something too, but i think your second move is illegal based on the example in the problem of "moving C to 1."
I told Emily the same thing, but i might be interpreting it wrong.

Posted by logischer Verstand on 2004-04-10 16:53:28