An evil king has 1000 bottles of wine. A neighboring queen plots to kill the bad king, and sends a servant to poison the wine. The king's guards catch the servant after he has only poisoned one bottle. The guards don't know which bottle was poisoned, but they do know that the poison is so potent that even if it was diluted 1,000,000 times, it would still be fatal. Furthermore, the effects of the poison take one month to surface. The king decides he will get some of his prisoners in his vast dungeons to drink the wine. Rather than using 1000 prisoners each assigned to a particular bottle, this king knows that he needs to murder no more than 10 prisoners to figure out what bottle is poisoned, and will still be able to drink the rest of the wine in 5 weeks time. How does he pull this off?
a puzzle is a puzzle...lol. I gotta run out for a sec, if someone gets this, I'll get to it when I get back...
They uncork all the bottles, they take the 10 prisoners and assign them all 100 bottles each. The proceed to pour the tiniest amount from each (as it is that potent apparently) into a cup. They then take the 100 wines that the prisoner that dies, dies from. Then split the wine 9/100 making all prisoners have 11 wine bottles, except 1, who has 12. They then do the same test, by pouring the 11/12 wines into a cup. Assuming that it was in the one of the 12 wines, they split the wines 8/12. Making 4 prisoners with 2 wines, and 4 with only 1. The prisoner that that dies, has the poisoned wine. Assuming that it was in a cup with 2 wines, they then proceed to use two prisoners, and deduct that the prisoner that dies from that wine, took the poison, and then they find the bottle.
And Peanuts, I found the place you got this riddle from, and I see all the answers . My answer is correct. However, if you continue asking from the place I am at, I will not cheat. I expect you to do the same
