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Tower of Hanoi & Big O: Pseudocode

The document discusses the Tower of Hanoi problem and its recursive solution. It presents pseudocode for a MoveTower function that moves a tower of n disks. Each call to MoveTower makes either 1 or 2M(n-1) + 1 moves, where M(n) is the number of moves for n disks. This recurrence relation leads to a closed-form solution of M(n) = 2^n - 1, meaning the runtime is O(2^n). State graphs are also presented to visualize the problem and solution for various numbers of disks.

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220 views10 pages

Tower of Hanoi & Big O: Pseudocode

The document discusses the Tower of Hanoi problem and its recursive solution. It presents pseudocode for a MoveTower function that moves a tower of n disks. Each call to MoveTower makes either 1 or 2M(n-1) + 1 moves, where M(n) is the number of moves for n disks. This recurrence relation leads to a closed-form solution of M(n) = 2^n - 1, meaning the runtime is O(2^n). State graphs are also presented to visualize the problem and solution for various numbers of disks.

Uploaded by

adin80
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Tower of Hanoi & Big O

Pseudocode:
FUNCTION MoveTower(n, source, dest, spare):
IF n == 1, THEN:
move disk 1 from source to dest //base case
ELSE:
MoveTower(n - 1, source, spare, dest) // Step 1
move disk n from source to dest // Step 2
MoveTower(n - 1, spare, dest, source) // Step 3
END IF
Tower of Hanoi
Tree of Recursive MoveTower Function Calls for n=3
Tower of Hanoi
Recursive MoveTower Function Calls for n=3 makes 7 disk moves

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Move Big Disk


From A to B
How long it takes
(or what is the Big O?)

The base case - when n is 1 - is easy: The monks just move the single
disk directly.

M(1) = 1 //number of disk moves

In the other cases, the monks follow our three-step procedure.


1.  First they move the (n-1)-disk tower to the spare peg;
•  this takes M(n-1) moves.
2.  Then the monks move the nth disk, taking 1 move.
3.  And finally they move the (n-1)-disk tower again, this time on top
of the nth disk,
•  taking M(n-1) moves.

This gives us our recurrence relation, Use this to calculate


M(n) = 2 M(n-1) + 1 Big O
A closed-form solution
Let's figure out values of M for the first few numbers.

M(1) =1
M(2)=2M(1) + 1 =3
M(3)=2M(2) + 1 =7
M(4)=2M(3) + 1 =15
M(5)=2M(4) + 1 =31

By looking at this, we can see that


M(n) = 2n - 1

We can verify this easily by plugging it into our recurrence.

M(1) = 1 = 21 – 1
M(n) = 2 M(n - 1) + 1 = 2 (2n – 1 - 1) + 1 = 2n - 1 Big O = O(2n)
Want more Big O?
›  Check out the Sorting/Algorithms slides:
http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~stejada/csci101/slides/SortingAlgoritms.pdf

›  Check out Chapter 18 p1234-1242


Want more?
Things to think about for next semester
State Graph for Tower of Hanoi with 1 disk
Each state is represented by a labeled vertex; legal moves are represented by edges.
Solution
(1)
Move from state 1 to state 3

(2) (3)
State Graph for Tower of Hanoi with 2 disks
Solution

(11)

(21) (31)

(23) (32)

(33) (13) (12) (22)


State Graph: 3 disks
Solution

(111)

(311) (211)
(321) (231)

(221) (331)
(121) (131)

(223) (332)
(123) (323) (232) (132)
(133) (313) (212) (122)

(333) (222)
(233) (213) (113) (112) (312) (322)

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