François Édouard Anatole Lucas was good with numbers. He was born in Amiens in 1842 and invented the Tower of Hanoi puzzle (you know, five discs, three poles, you've got to move all the discs onto another pole and you can't put a larger disc on a smaller disc). Apparently, the puzzle predates Lucas in Indian legend: the Priests of Brahma have a similar game, still with three posts, but with sixty-four discs. According to the legend, the world will end when the puzzle is completed. There is, however no immediate cause for alarm. Even if the legend is true, AND if the Priests of Brahma can move a disc every second, we've still got six hundred billion years to go.
La Résidence - THE French Property People
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