Tuesday, August 16, 2011

PUZZLER

Problem:A pharmacist has 10 bottles of extra-strength Rogaine. One bottle is defective. A regular pill weighs 5 grams, while the faulty pills weigh 6 grams each.
The mean old pharmacist tells his assistant, George Bailey, to weigh a pill from each bottle to find the bad batch. But George is in a hurry because he has a date in five minutes. He figures out which bottle is faulty by using the scale only one time. How does he do it?(click below for the answer)


Solution:George takes one pill from the first bottle, two from the second, etc. He ends up with 55 pills, which should weigh 275 grams (55 pills times 5 grams). If they weigh 276 grams, he has one faulty pill, and he knows it's from bottle #1! If they weigh 278 grams, he has three bad pills from bottle #3, etc.

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