2026-10-04 · history
Tower of Hanoi (1883) — The 64-Disk Legend a Mathematician Sold Under a Pseudonym
In 1883 the French mathematician Lucas sold a three-peg disk puzzle under the name "Professor N. Claus (de Siam)". The minimum for n disks is 2^n − 1 moves; the legendary 64 disks would take about 585 billion years. Bousch showed in 2014 that the four-peg count is optimal. This traces its history from the sources I could check.
