[CrackMonkey] [schoen@loyalty.org: Pill-weighing]

[Seth David Schoen]

Bernard writes:

> 13Feb2000 11:07AM (-0800) From [schoen at loyalty.org] schoen [Seth David Schoen]
> > Based on Gardner's _aha! Insight_, if I remember correctly.  I've sent
> > Lise back to the grad students with the following counter-challenges:
> > 
> > ----- Forwarded message from Seth David Schoen <schoen at loyalty.org> -----
> > 
> > [...]
> > 
> > You are a pharmacist, and [...]
> > 
> > (1) You have n bottles of pills.  Each bottle contains an unknown number of
> > pills.  The pills are supposed to be 100 mg, but one bottle is "bad": all
> > the pills in that bottle are 101 mg instead.
> > 
> > By using a scale only once, how can you immediately tell which bottle is bad?
> 
> Pour all the pills into one bottle.  It now contains the bad pill.

Bernard wins, too.  I never thought of that.

... see if I hire _you_ to do dosimetry in my Number-Theoretic Pharamacy
of the Future, though!

"Yeah, if we throw away _all the pills_, we'll never, ever ship any
pills with wrong doses."

-- 
Seth David Schoen <schoen at loyalty.org>  | And do not say, I will study when I
Temp.  http://www.loyalty.org/~schoen/  | have leisure; for perhaps you will
down:  http://www.loyalty.org/   (CAF)  | not have leisure.  -- Pirke Avot 2:5