The History of the Tower of Hanoi
A puzzle from 1883 that came with an invented legend - and a neat rule for the fewest moves.
Édouard Lucas, 1883
The French mathematician Édouard Lucas presented the puzzle in 1883 as a game supposedly found by a "N. Claus (de Siam)" - the letters of "Lucas d'Amiens" rearranged. In 1889 he published it as a booklet.
An invented legend
The legend that came with the puzzle told of priests in a temple in Benares who move a tower of 64 golden discs; when they finish, the world will end. The legend belonged to the game's story, not to real history.
The fewest moves
Moving n discs takes at least 2^n − 1 moves: first the n − 1 smaller discs to the middle rod, then the biggest to the goal, then the smaller ones on top of it. With 64 discs and one move per second, that would take far longer than the age of the universe.