You have been given 10 bags of pearls. You are told that one of the bags is full of those cheap plastic kind of pearls, but the other nine are the real deal. Naturally, you cannot tell the difference just by looking. However, you know that the fake pearls weigh 9 grams each, while the real ones are one gram heavier and weigh 10.
Armed with a very presice scale, you could weigh a pearl from each bag until you find the fake one by weight, but that would take up to 10 weighings. Can you do it in less?
(In reply to
re: Question of a question by TomM)
:b) as you take the pearls out of each bag, you
:place them in a separate baggie so that you can
:return them to their proper bag.
Grrrr. Foil my idea. ;-) But then you'd have to know the weight of the baggies, anyway. You could weigh one, but that's one extra weighing... :-) What if there weren't any available?
re(2): Question of a question
