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?
(In reply to
Waste a test by Gamer)
Gamer, you wrote:
"Although I agree that that makes sense..."
WHAT is it that you are agreeing with? Or rather with which posting are you agreeing with?
And even if it's unlikely that you're going to waste a test, the problem did ask for minimizing the maximum possible, so likelihood really doesn't play into it.
re: Waste a test
