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Tower of Hanoi

    The Tower of Hanoi game is very useful in understanding the Recurrence relation.

    It is a game of moving N disk between 3 needles. However, there are some rules we must follow before moving a disk from one needle to second needle.

    Rule 1: Move only one disk at a time and it must be a top one.

    Rule 2. Cannot move a larger disk on top of smaller one.

    Rule 3: Number of moves should be minimum.

    Let see how this works for 3 disk Tower of Hanoi game and using output of the game we can find solution to Tower of Hanoi game for N disk.

    Tower of Hanoi - Initial Setup with Pegs
    Tower of Hanoi – Initial Setup with Pegs

    Initially , our disks stacked in needle 1 and other two remain empty. Each time we move a disk it is counted as 1.

    TOH - Disk Move From Needle 1 to Needle 3
    TOH – Disk Move From Needle 1 to Needle 3

    Move top disk from needle 1 to needle 3.

    TOH - Move disk from Needle 1 to Needle 2
    TOH – Move disk from Needle 1 to Needle 2

    Move top disk from needle 1 to needle 2.

    TOH - Move disk from Needle 3 to Needle 2
    TOH – Move disk from Needle 3 to Needle 2

    Move top disk from needle 3 to needle 2.

    TOH - Move disk from Needle 1 to Needle 3
    TOH – Move disk from Needle 1 to Needle 3

    Move top disk from needle 1 to needle 3.

    TOH - Move disk from Needle 2 to Needle 1
    TOH – Move disk from Needle 2 to Needle 1

    Move top disk from needle 2 to needle 1.

    TOH - Move disk from Needle 2 to Needle 3
    TOH – Move disk from Needle 2 to Needle 3

    Move top disk from needle 2 to needle 3.

    TOH - Move disk from Needle 1 to Needle 3
    TOH – Move disk from Needle 1 to Needle 3

    Move top disk from needle 1 to needle 3.

    So we took total 7 Moves to shift all 3 disks.

    Let the total number of disk move be H.
    If we want to compute total count for 4 disk Tower of Hanoi game.

    H_{n}=2(H_{n-1}-1) +1 = 2 . 7 + 1 = 14 + 1 =15

    There minimum 15 disk move required for 4 disk Tower of Hanoi game.

    We can derive a much easier formula for  H_{n}=2(H_{n-1}-1) +1

    = 2^n - 1

    How we arrived at this solution, we leave it as an exercise for you.