The Reve's Puzzle
The Reve's Puzzle
This is the classic Reve's puzzle as presented in [1]. Initially, the Reve placed eight pieces of cheese of graduating sizes on one of four stools. The Reve challenged his fellow pilgrims to move them all to another stool by moving them one at a time, without ever putting a larger cheese on top of a smaller, and in the least number of moves possible. After completing that task, the pilgrim was expected to move nine cheeses, then ten, and so on, until 21 cheeses were finally moved from the starting stool to another stool, in the least number of moves possible. Once a pilgrim was successful, the Reve promised to give him "a draught of the best that our good host can provide". This Demonstration shows the moves that make it possible to win a draught of the host's finest from the Reve.