Tower Of Hanoi

Introduction
The Tower of Hanoi is a mathematical puzzle invented by E Lucas in1883. It consists of
three pegs, and a number of disks of different sizes which can slide onto any peg. The puzzle
starts with the disks neatly stacked in order of size on one peg, the smallest at the top, thus
making a conical shape.
The objective of the puzzle is to move the entire stack to another rod, obeying the following
rules:
• Only one disk may be moved at a time.
• Each move consists of taking the upper disk from one of the rods and sliding it onto
another rod, on top of the other disks that may already be present on that rod.
• No disk may be placed on top of a smaller disk.
Mathematical Model
Here we assume that there are three pages named Source(S), Intermediate(I) and
Destination(D). Our aim is to move a tower of n disks from a starting peg S onto a destination
peg D, I being the remaining third peg and assuming S≠D.
If there is only one disk (or even none at all), the problem is trivial. If n=1, then simply move
the disk from peg S to peg D. If n>1, then somewhere along the sequence of moves, the
largest disk must be moved from peg S to another peg, preferably to peg D. The only
situation that allows this move is when all smaller n-1 disks are on peg I. Hence, first all h-1
smaller disks must go from S to D. Subsequently move the largest disk and finally move the
n-1 smaller disks from peg I to peg D. Now the problem is reduced to moving n-1 disks from
one peg to another one, first from S to I and subsequently from I to D, but the same method
can be used both times by renaming the pegs.
In the implementation of Tower of hanoi, the user is prompted to input the number of plates
and that integer is stored in a variable n. The following is a procedure for moving a tower of n
disks from a peg S onto a peg D, with T being the remaining third peg:
• Step 1: If n>1 then first use this procedure to move the n-1 smaller disks from peg S
to peg D.
• Step 2: Now the largest disk, i.e. disk can be moved from peg S to peg D.
• Step 3: If n>1 then again use this procedure to move the n-1 smaller disks from peg S
to peg D.
Algorithm
Hanoi(n: integer; source, intermediate, destination)

Begin

1. if (n=1) then
a) write: SOURCE  DESTINATION.
b) Return.
[End of If structure]

1. Call Hanoi(n-1, source, destination, intermediate);

2. Write: SOURCE  DESTINATION.

3. Call Hanoi(n-1,intermediate, source, destination);

4. Return.

Source Code

Outputs and Testing

Analysis

➢ Time Analysis

No. of moves = 2n – 1

Where n is the number of plates.

The following table is an observation of time taken by a

computer with 2.1GHz(core 2) processing power and an
adequate amount of physical memory for solving the
Tower of Hanoi problem without graphics.

Observatio No. of No. of Time taken Time taken by

n No. plates moves (in secs) single move
(n) (m) (t) (ts)
1 1 2 0.0000000 0.000000000
2 5 31 0.0000000 0.000000000
3 8 255 0.0549450 0.000215470
4 9 511 0.1098900 0.000215048
5 10 1,023 0.2197800 0.000214838
6 11 2,047 0.4395600 0.000214733
7 12 4,095 0.8241760 0.000212639
8 13 8,191 1.6483520 0.000201239
9 14 16,383 3.2976703 0.000201286
10 15 32,767 6.6483520 0.000202897
11 16 65,535 13.296703 0.000202894
12 17 131,071 26.593407 0.000202893
13 18 262,143 53.186813 0.000202892
14 19 524,287 106.428574 0.000202996
 15 20 1,048,5 212.802200 0.000294418
75

Time taken for a single move by the computer ts is the average

of time observed by a single move in all the observations.

ts = 0.00278424313
= 0.000214172 seconds

Time taken to move 64 disks by computer = (264-1)*ts

= (18,446,744,073,709,551,616-1) *
0.000214172

= 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 *
0.000214172
No. of disks 

= 3,950,776,071,754,522.08848778
seconds

= 4,572,657,490.566227876015 days

= 4,572,657,490.21437602664296365.242199 years

No.12,519,521.30047923631804374280421
= of disks 
years

≈ 12.5 million years

Time taken to move 64 disks at the rate of 1 disk per second =
(264-1)*1
= 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 * 1

= 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 seconds

= 213,503,982,334,601.29184027days

= 213,503,982,334,601.29184027365.242199 years

= 584,554,530,991.0952864465635 years

≈ 584 million years

Graph analysis

➢ This problem is isomorphic to finding a Hamiltonian path

on an hypercube.
➢ The problem can be represented by an undirected graph,
the nodes representing distributions of disks and the
branches representing moves. For one disk, the graph is a
triangle:

The graph for 2 disks is 3 triangles arranged in a larger

triangle:

The nodes at the vertices of the outermost triangle represent

distributions with all disks on the same peg.
For n+1 disks, take the graph of h disks and replace each small
triangle with the graph for 2 disks.
For 3 disks the graph is:
 • call the pegs a, b and c
• list disk positions from left to right in order of increasing
size
The sides of the outermost triangle represent the shortest ways
of moving a tower from one peg to another one. The branch in
the middle of the sides of the largest triangle represents a
move of the largest disk. The branch in the middle of the sides
of each next smaller triangle represents a move of each next
smaller disk. The sides of the smallest triangles represent
moves of the smallest disk.
In general, for a puzzle with n disks, there are 3n nodes in the
graph; every node has three branches to other nodes, except
the three corner nodes, which have two: it is always possible to
move the smallest disk to the one of the two other pegs; and it
is possible to move one disk between those two pegs except in
the situation where all disks are stacked on one peg. The corner
nodes represent the three cases where all the disks are stacked
on one peg. The diagram for n+1 disks is obtained by taking
three copies of the n-disk diagram -- each one representing all
the states and moves of the smaller disks for one particular
position of the new largest disk -- and joining them at the
corners with three new branches, representing the only three
opportunities to move the largest disk. The resulting figure thus
has 3n+1 nodes and still has three corners remaining with only
two branches.
The longest non-repetitive way for three disks can be visualized
by erasing the unused branches:

The circular Hamiltonian path for three disks is:

The graphs clearly show that:
• From every arbitrary distribution of disks, there is exactly
one shortest way to move all disks onto one of the three
pegs.
• Between every pair of arbitrary distributions of disks there
are one or two different shortest paths.
• From every arbitrary distribution of disks, there are one or
two different longest non self-crossing paths to move all
disks to one of the three pegs.
• Between every pair of arbitrary distributions of disks there
are one or two different longest non self-crossing paths.
• Let Nn be the number of non self-crossing paths for
moving a tower of n disks from one peg to another one.
Then:
○ N1=2
○ Nn+1=(Nn)2+(Nn)3.
○ For example: N8≈1.5456x10795