The police commissioner hired a mathematician to help at a crime scene. At the scene were between 100 and 200 glasses of wine. Exactly one glass was poisoned. The police lab could test any sampling for poison. A group of glasses could be tested simultaneously by mixing a sample from each glass. The police commissioner desired only to minimize the maximum possible tests required to determine which exact glass was poisoned.
The mathematician started by asking a detective to select a single glass at random for testing. "Wouldn't that waste a test?", the detective asked. "No, besides I'm in a gambling mood.", the mathematician replied. How many glasses were there?
"The POLICE COMMISSIONER desired..."
We don't know what the mathematician wanted to do.
As a gambling man, I think the mathematician wanted to find out what glass had the poison in it, chuck it out, invite three of his friends 'round to drink the 128 glasses of wine that were left and play poker.
For the record, I got the same solution as SK, but he beat me to posting it by a few mintues. So I decided to post what I thought might REALLY happen!
What REALLY happened.
