The Poisonous Bottle Riddle | Don't Memorise

TL;DR

Nora needs to identify the poisoned bottle of apple juice within an hour using two mice.

Transcript

nora won a gold medal in table tennis at the inter-school competition so she decides to throw a party at her place for which she's invited her friends over while planning the party she realizes that her friends love apple juice while nora is busy making arrangements for her party she gets a call from a troublemaker he tells her that he secretly poi... Read More

Key Insights

• 🍼 Dividing the bottles into mixtures and observing the mice's reactions helps identify the poison bottle.
• ⌛ Testing each mouse with a sip from one bottle at a time is not feasible due to time constraints.
• 😌 The solution lies in overlapping the mixtures and analyzing the mice's survival or death to identify the poison bottle.
• 💦 The strategy works in all possible cases, except when both mice survive the first half hour.

Questions & Answers

Q: Can Nora find the poison bottle with certainty within an hour by sacrificing the two mice?

Yes, Nora can find the poison bottle with certainty. By dividing the bottles into mixtures and observing the mice's reactions, she can narrow down the possibilities and identify the poison bottle.

Q: What happens if both mice die at 6:30 pm?

If both mice die at 6:30 pm, it means that the poison bottle is the one they both consumed from, which is the bottle in the overlapping mixture they shared.

Q: Is there a foolproof strategy using smaller groups of bottles?

No, using smaller groups of bottles (e.g., three bottles per mouse) is not foolproof because there are cases where the poison bottle cannot be identified within the given time constraints.

Q: How does Nora solve the riddle?

Nora uses an overlapping strategy. She divides the bottles into mixtures for Alice and Bob, and based on their survival or death, she can determine the poison bottle.

Summary & Key Takeaways

• Nora wants to throw a party and realizes that one of the nine apple juice bottles she bought is poisoned.

• She is told that two mice will die exactly half an hour after consuming the poison, even from a small sip.

• Nora needs to come up with a foolproof strategy to identify the poison bottle within an hour using the mice.