The 15-puzzle has been around for over 100 years; even if you don't know it by that name, you've seen it. It is constructed with 15 sliding tiles, each with a number from 1 to 15 on it, and all packed into a 4 by 4 frame with one tile missing. Let's call the missing tile 'x'; the object of the puzzle is to arrange the tiles so that they are ordered as:. 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4. 5 6 7 8 5 6 7 8 5 6 7 8 5 6 7 8. 9 x 10 12 9 10 x 12 9 10 11 12 9 10 11 12. 13 14 11 15 13 14 11 15 13 14 x 15 13 14 15 x. The letters in the previous row indicate which neighbor of the 'x' tile is swapped with the 'x' tile at each step; legal values are 'r','l','u' and 'd', for right, left, up, and down, respectively.Not all puzzles can be solved; in 1870, a man named Sam Loyd was famous for distributing an unsolvable version of the puzzle, and
The 15-puzzle has been around for over 100 years; even if you don't know it by that name, you've seen it. It is constructed with 15 sliding tiles, each with a number from 1 to 15 on it, and all packed into a 4 by 4 frame with one tile missing. Let's call the missing tile 'x'; the object of the puzzle is to arrange the tiles so that they are ordered as: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 x where the only legal operation is to exchange 'x' with one of the tiles with which it shares an edge. As an example, the following sequence of moves solves a slightly scrambled puzzle: 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 5 6 7 8 5 6 7 8 5 6 7 8 9 x 10 12 9 10 x 12 9 10 11 12 9 10 11 12 13 14 11 15 13 14 11 15 13 14 x 15 13 14 15 x r-> d-> r-> The letters in the previous row indicate which neighbor of the 'x' tile is swapped with the 'x' tile at each step; legal values are 'r','l','u' and 'd', for right, left, up, and down, respectively. Not all puzzles can be solved; in 1870, a man named Sam Loyd was famous for distributing an unsolvable version of the puzzle, and frustrating many people. In fact, all you have to do to make a regular puzzle into an unsolvable one is to swap two tiles (not counting the missing 'x' tile, of course). In this problem, you will write a program for solving the less well-known 8-puzzle, composed of tiles on a three by three arrangement.
