There are 1000 bottles of wine and you know that there is exactly one of them that is poisonous, and will kill the drinker in 7 days. (To be precise, it will take randomly from 7 days to 7 days 23 hr 59 min 59 sec.) Now you have 10 testers who are willing to risk their lives and test-drink those wines. What is the smallest number of days you need to figure out which bottle contains the poisonous wine? In addition, under this strategy, what is the maximum and minimum number of deaths? The extension to this problem is, how will your strategy change if you only have 9 testers?

(In reply to a minor correction by vertigo)

Nice solution vertigo.

I don't see why you need one death on day 7.  You are using the 9 testers on the first batch of 500, so they can uniquely identify 512 bottles.  If nobody dies on day 7, then the poisonuos bottle must be in the second batch, which you solve the next day.

Posted by Hugo on 2005-02-26 19:41:59