History and Legend
According to the ongoing legend of the Tower of Hanoi, at the beginning of time, the Hindu temple priests were given a stack of 64 fragile disks of gold and they had the task of transferring the disks from one pole in the ground of the temple to the third pole on the other side of the temple, one disk at a time. No two disks were the same size: each one was a little smaller than the one beneath it; therefore, the largest disk was on the bottom of the pile and the smallest disk was on the top of the pile. The only important rule was that, because the disks were so fragile, a larger disk was to never be placed on a smaller disk, and there was only one intermediate pole where the disks could be temporarily placed (mathforum). The priests worked day and night to complete the task, and when they did, legend has it that the temple crumbled into dust, and the world vanished before the priests could complete the task, but no one knows if this actually occurred. Picturing the legend scenario, it seems nearly impossible to complete such a task. Although the priests didn’t know it at the time, due to the power of sequences and patterns, the priests completed the task successfully. (PBS). The legend was spread by Edouard Lucas in hopes of helping to popularize the Tower of Hanoi game. Lucas later died in 1891 after a broken dinner plate tore his cheek and caused a systemic infection. His obituary, published in and 1892 edition of “Popular Science Monthly” described his mathematical inventions to be “as amusing as they were instructive” (entertainment).
The discs get their increasing shape from the architecture of the Tower itself!