Tower of “Vietnam”: A Broader Version of “Tower of Hanoi”

Abstract

The traditional problem, “Tower of Hanoi”, might seem familiar to you. The “game” is believed to have been invented in 1883 by the French mathematician Édouard Lucas, although this fact is still disputed. In Vietnam (or sometimes India), there is a legend of a very tall temple with so many floors, and the floor’s diameter gets smaller as the temple gets higher. Priests would then lift each floor up, and move from one peg to another, using another peg as an auxiliary, such that no lower floor is smaller than the upper one. The legend said that once the priests have managed to rearrange (transfer) the temple, then the world would end