You have a container containing 1 liter of pure blue liquid dye. The container is cunningly designed in such a way that up to one extra liter of liquid may be added, but only the excess over 1 liter may ever be poured out. (If the container were filled to 1.5 liters only .5 liter could be poured out.)

If you have only one liter of pure water, what is the minimum concentration you could dilute the dye in the container to?

Assume the dye is completely soluble and mixes instantaneously.

The max amount of dye that can be removed is (e-1)/e

hence the minimum concentration would be (1-(e-1)/e))/1 = 1/e

i.e    1 / J (e) R

Edited on June 8, 2006, 11:43 am

Posted by Salil on 2006-06-08 11:42:01