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 re: a minor correction by Hugo)

Yes indeed, 511 bottles don't need to be tested in the first day. in fact, you could test as little as 488 on day 1. So you could increase the chances that some of your faithful testers get to live for one day longer...

Posted by vertigo on 2005-02-26 20:03:21