Editing Tower of Hanoi (section)

== In popular culture ==
In the science fiction story "Now Inhale", by [[Eric Frank Russell]], a human is held prisoner on a planet where the local custom is to make the prisoner play a game until it is won or lost before his execution. The protagonist knows that a rescue ship might take a year or more to arrive, so he chooses to play Towers of Hanoi with 64 disks. This story makes reference to the legend about the Buddhist monks playing the game until the end of the world.<ref>{{cite magazine |journal=Astounding Science Fiction |date=April 1959 |first=Eric Frank |last=Russell |title=Now Inhale |volume = 63 |issue = 2 |department=Novelettes |pages=31–77 |url=https://archive.org/details/Astounding_v63n02_1959-04_EXciter-LennyS/page/n30/mode/1up}}
* Reprinted: {{cite book| editor-last=Katze |editor-first=Rick |title=Major Ingredients: The Selected Short Stories of Eric Frank Russell |date=2000 |pages=399–417 |chapter=Now Inhale |last=Russell |first=Eric Frank |location=Framingham, Mass. |publisher=NESFA Press |isbn=978-1-886778-10-8 |ref=none}}</ref><ref name="Self-Similar Groups">{{cite book |last1=Bonanome |first1=Marianna C. |last2=Dean |first2=Margaret H. |last3=Dean |first3=Judith Putnam |title=A Sampling of Remarkable Groups: Thompson's, Self-similar, Lamplighter, and Baumslag-Solitar |date=2018 |publisher=Springer |location=Cham, Switzerland |doi=10.1007/978-3-030-01978-5_3 |page=96 |chapter=Self-Similar Groups|series=Compact Textbooks in Mathematics |isbn=978-3-030-01976-1 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Birtwistle |first=Graham |title=The coroutines of Hanoi |journal=ACM SIGPLAN Notices |date=January 1985 |volume=20 |issue=1 |pages=9–10 |doi=10.1145/988284.988286 |s2cid=7310661 }}</ref>

In the 1966 ''[[Doctor Who]]'' story ''[[The Celestial Toymaker]]'', the [[eponym]]ous villain forces [[the Doctor]] to play a ten-piece, [[1,023]]-move Tower of Hanoi game entitled The Trilogic Game with the pieces forming a pyramid shape when stacked.<ref name="Self-Similar Groups"/><ref>{{cite web |title=The Fourth Dimension: The Celestial Toymaker |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3DHlYgfSdY2RlXkS2KwjtKK/the-fourth-dimension |website=Doctor Who |publisher=BBC One |access-date=April 2, 2021}}</ref>

In 2007, the concept of the Towers Of Hanoi problem was used in ''[[Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box]]'' in puzzles 6, 83, and 84, but the disks had been changed to pancakes. The puzzle was based around a dilemma where the chef of a restaurant had to move a pile of pancakes from one plate to the other with the basic principles of the original puzzle (i.e. three plates that the pancakes could be moved onto, not being able to put a larger pancake onto a smaller one, etc.)

In the 2011 film ''[[Rise of the Planet of the Apes]]'', this puzzle, called in the film the "Lucas Tower", is used as a test to study the [[intelligence of apes]].<ref name="Self-Similar Groups"/>

The puzzle is featured regularly in [[adventure game|adventure]] and [[computer puzzle game|puzzle]] games. Since it is easy to implement, and easily recognised, it is well suited to use as a puzzle in a larger graphical game (e.g. ''[[Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (video game)|Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic]]'' and ''[[Mass Effect (video game)|Mass Effect]]'').<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.giantbomb.com/tower-of-hanoi/92-5744/ |title=Tower of Hanoi (video game concept) |publisher=Giantbomb.com |access-date=2010-12-05}}</ref> Some implementations use straight disks, but others disguise the puzzle in some other form. There is an arcade version by [[Sega]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.segaarcade.com/towerofhanoi |title=Tower of Hanoi / Andamiro |publisher=Sega Amusements |access-date=2012-02-26 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120301060428/http://www.segaarcade.com/towerofhanoi |archive-date=2012-03-01 }}</ref>

A 15-disk version of the puzzle appears in the game ''[[Sunless Sea]]'' as a lock to a tomb. The player has the option to click through each move of the puzzle in order to solve it, but the game notes that it will take [[32,767]] moves to complete. If an especially dedicated player does click through to the end of the puzzle, it is revealed that completing the puzzle does not unlock the door.

This was first used as a challenge in ''Survivor'' Thailand in 2002 but rather than rings, the pieces were made to resemble a temple. Sook Jai threw the challenge to get rid of Jed even though Shii-Ann knew full well how to complete the puzzle.
The problem is featured as part of a reward challenge in a [[Survivor: South Pacific#Episode 1: "I Need Redemption"|2011 episode of the American version of the ''Survivor'' TV series]]. Both players ([[Ozzy Lusth]] and [[Coach (Survivor contestant)|Benjamin "Coach" Wade]]) struggled to understand how to solve the puzzle and are aided by their fellow tribe members.

In ''[[Genshin Impact]]'', this puzzle is shown in Faruzan's hangout quest, "Early Learning Mechanism", where she mentions seeing it as a mechanism and uses it to make a toy prototype for children. She calls it [[pagoda]] stacks.