资料来源 : Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing

eight queens puzzle
     
         A puzzle in which one has to place eight queens on
        a chessboard such that no queen is attacking any other,
        i.e. no two queens occupy the same row, column or diagonal.
        One may have to produce all possible such configurations or
        just one.
     
        It is a common students assignment to devise a program to
        solve the eight queens puzzle.  The {brute force} {algorithm}
        tries all 64*63*62*61*60*59*58*57 = 178,462,987,637,760
        possible layouts of eight pieces on a chessboard to see which
        ones meet the criterion.  More intelligent algorithms use the
        fact that there are only ten positions for the first queen
        that are not reflections of each other, and that the first
        queen leaves at most 42 safe squares, giving only
        10*42*41*40*39*38*37*36 = 1,359,707,731,200 layouts to try,
        and so on.
     
        The puzzle may be varied with different number of pieces and
        different size boards.
     
        [Best algorithm?]
     
        (1999-07-28)