# How to check if a 8-puzzle is solvable?

I have a 8-puzzle

1|2|3
-+-+-
4|5|6
-+-+-
|8|7


How can be checked if the puzzle is solvable?

Wikipedia states that it is solvable, but does not prove it. Can anybody explain the prove?

-
What is a $9$ puzzle? –  Michael Albanese Feb 3 '13 at 11:01
It is a 15-puzzle with only 9 items. –  ceving Feb 3 '13 at 11:02
Ok it would be more precise to call it 8-puzzle. –  ceving Feb 3 '13 at 11:07
Where does Wikipedia claim this is solvable? –  Chris Eagle Feb 3 '13 at 11:17
A careful read of the Wikipedia article shows that what they're claiming is that if it's solvable then no more than 31 single tile moves required. Before that it definitely says the $n$ puzzle is only solvable for even permutations. –  coffeemath Feb 3 '13 at 14:29

If you ignore the gap and just look at the ordered sequence of numbers, any "horizontal" move leaves the sequence unchanged and any "vertical" move of the puzzle has the form $$(\ldots, x, y, z, \ldots)\to (\ldots, y, z, x, \ldots)$$ or vice versa. These are even permutations and therefore the group of possible permutations is a subgroup of $A_8$ (alternating group) and cannot be all of $S_8$ (full symmetric group). The situation in your post corresponds to an odd permutation of the target ordering and therefore is not solvable.

-
Is it really a group? It's not relevant, but it would be great if you could elaborate on that. It doesn't look obvious to me. –  Karolis Juodelė Feb 3 '13 at 14:21
Can you give me a hint, where to find an explanation of odd and even permutations? I do not understand, why the shown move is even and why getting the target ordering is odd. –  ceving Feb 13 '13 at 14:00

Though It's old question but I am trying to answer it.

There is a method to check whether the given state is solvable or not.

Problem State:

1|2|3
-+-+-
4|5|6
-+-+-
|8|7


Write it in a linear way, 1,2,3,4,5,6,8,7 - Ignore the blank tile

Now find the number of inversion, by counting tiles precedes the another tile with lower number.

In our case, 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 is having 0 inversions, and 8 is having 1 inversion as it's preceding the number 7.

Total number of inversion is 1 (odd number) so the puzzle is insolvable.

Let's take another example,

5|2|8
-+-+-
4|1|7
-+-+-
|3|6


5 precedes 1,2,3,4 - 4 inversions 2 precedes 1 - 1 inversion 8 precedes 1,3,4,6,7 - 5 inversions 4 precedes 1,3 - 2 inversions 1 precedes none - 0 inversions 7 precedes 3,4 - 2 inversions 3 precedes none - 0 inversions 6 precedes none - 0 inversions

total inversions 4+1+5+2+0+2+0+0 = 14 (Even Number) So this puzzle is solvable.

Here is a function which I have used in Flash Game to check whether the given puzzle is solvable or not

    public function checkSolvable(pList:Array):Boolean{
trace("checkSolvable called with : " + pList);
var inversions:Number = 0;

for(var i:int=0;i<pList.length;i++){
for(var j:int=i+1;j<pList.length;j++){
if(pList[j]>pList[i]){
inversions++;
}
}
}

if(inversions%2 == 1){
trace("It's Unsolvable");
return false;
}else{
trace("It's Solvable");
return true;
}
}


Visit http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~mdr/teaching/modules04/java2/TilesSolvability.html for detailed information.

-