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?

To round this puzzle off nicely, find an equation for the maximum number of bottles (M), one of which is poisonous, which can be tested by some number of testers (T). Assume the posion kills a tester N days after ingestion.

For the more ambitious, find the more general equation when B bottles are poisonous.

Posted by vertigo on 2005-02-27 16:56:03