Poisoned Wine

June 4th, 2006 admin Posted in Tidbits | No Comments »

You are the Monarch of an Island and are about to have a festival tomorrow. The festival is the most important one you have ever had. You’ve got 1000 bottles of wine you were planning to open for the fiesta, but you find out that one of them is poisoned by some evil scoundrel. The actual poison exhibits no symptoms until somewhere around the 23rd hour, then results in sudden death. You have thousands of prisoners at your disposal.

1. What is the smallest number of prisoners you must have to drink from the bottles to find the poisoned bottle?
2. What is the smallest number of prisoners that you must sacrifice?
3. For the strong minded, what is the smallest number of prisoners if more than one bottle (say 2) is poisoned? Read More (pdf file)