You’re Caught–Stop Your Whining
The King of Freedonia has caught 10 spies from the Kingdom of Sylvania who attempted to poison his wine. The King of Freedonia keeps 1000 bottles of wine in his cellar. The spies managed to poison one of the 1000 bottles but were caught before they could poison any more. The poison is a very special one that is deadly even at one-millionth the dilution of the poisoned wine bottle and takes EXACTLY 24 hours to kill the victim, producing no symptoms before death.
The trouble is that the King doesn’t know which bottle has been poisoned and the wine is needed for the Royal Ball in exactly 24 hour’s time! Since the punishment for attempted regicide is death, the King decides to feed some of the wine to the spies. The King informs his wine steward that he will be able to identify the poisoned bottle by the time the ball starts and kill at most 10 of the spies. Further, each spy drinks only once.
How does he do it?
Problem passed on by Elida Flores, titled by yours truly, phrased by Eric Adelizzi, inspired by Rufus T. Firefly.
(FOR THE EXPERTS: YOU CAN DO IT WITH AT MOST 8 PEOPLE DYING!!!)
Rufus T. Firefly: Awfully decent of you to drop in today. Do you realize our army is facing disastrous defeat? What do you intend to do about it?
Chicolini: I’ve done it already.
Rufus T. Firefly: You’ve done what?
Chicolini: I’ve changed to the other side.
Rufus T. Firefly: So you’re on the other side, eh? Well, what are you doing over here?
Chicolini: Well, the food is better over here.
this answer is wrong
nice idea but cannot do this
pretend the spy no longer knows which is poisoned as the bottles were shuffled
ASK ONE OF THE SPY TO PICK 999 WINE BOTTLE AND TELL HIM WE GOING TO MIX ALL 999 BOTTLE AND U ALL HAVE TO DRINK WINE FROM THAT MIXTURE.THE LEFT OVER BOTTLE HAS POISON. IN THE NIGHT FEED ALL OF THEM FROM TAHTAT BOTTLE.
VERY SIMPLE ISNT IT
Glad you enjoy it — tried emailing but it bounced (I’m sjm1 AT williams.edu)
Very good article. I definitely love this site.
Continue the good work!
Sorry. I’d suggest some google searching //s
Great website you have here but I was wondering if you knew
of any community forums that cover the same topics
talked about in this article? I’d really love
to be a part of group where I can get responses from other knowledgeable people
that share the same interest. If you have any suggestions, please let me know.
Many thanks!
dean: correct — email me at sjm1 AT williams.edu
aryeh: not following your soln — email me at sjm1 AT williams.edu
to be a little more detailed if say spies number 1,2,7,8 1 and 10, all drank from bottle number 678, and they are the only that die and there is no other common bottle between the six of them then you know that bottle number 678 is the one.
Again i am unsure of the mathematical equation.
sergio: correct! (sjm1 AT williams.edu)
initially it’s to make sure you find the poisoned bottle without worrying about how many spies die, then later we try to minimize the death total.
i dont understand the objective. To save as many bottles or to kill as many spies, or both? Or to save as many spies as possible?
email me at sjm1 AT williams.edu if you want to chat more — I don’t want to give away anything to people reading. ..s
Well, you could mix the bottles of wine into ten large portions. The poisoned bottle would ruin 100 bottles and kill one man, but the other 900 bottles and 9 men would be good and healthy. All of them can drink at the same time and you’ll know in the 24 hours time. I don’t know if the idea of being wasteful is problematic, but there is no specification as to how much wine the king’s party needs; besides, 900 bottles of wine is plenty.
-This assumes you can mix the bottles (or take drops from them so as to leave them in the bottle
-Another assumption is that no matter what in 24 hours the poison will kill them and that the dilution will not change the time of death (stronger the dose, faster the death).
I’ll send a hint first.
I can I have the SOLUTION?
You want to get it all at once, you don’t want to wait days and days….
dilute small amounts form 100 bottles and serve mixture to a spy, wait 24 hrs and u save 900 bottles, sacrifice one spy and lose 100 bottles, or further dilute that 100 bottle batch to other spies and deduce which one is poisonous
Depending on how careful / clever you are, you can minimize a bit more the number of spies that might die. Of course, I think they deserve what they get and am not too interested in being more efficient to save them…. The ideas behind this riddle are somewhat related to error detecting and correcting codes. /s
what will be extra credit solution
Nice try, but the spies used the transporter to get the poison in….
Check for a corkscrew mark to find the bottle, as fine wine would be spoiled after being opened for 24 hours.
The safe generals (if I’m remembering correctly) was more combinatorial. This is a little different (hint: think binary).
I don’t yet have a solution for this one, however the approach seems to be the same way that the Safe Generals riddle works. (both tough ones!) Am I on the right track with this plan?
TWIG: You are VERY close. Email me at [email protected] if you want to talk about the solution (you just have to have everyone drink their mixture simultaneously, not in stages)
Note that 2^10>1000. So if each spy drinks drops from half (rounded if needed) of the remaining bottles, we get 500,250, 125, at most 63, at most 32, at most 16, at most 8, at most 4, at most 2, and finally 1 bottle remaining (after each spy has a drink, the number of “uncertain bottles” is halved). So we get find the poisoned bottle.
Unsure, and have not explained this properly .
think binary representations — if that doesn’t help email me at [email protected] for a soln
This is tricky !
Can u give me a hint cause i just cant get it.
too wasteful and takes too long
Does he need all the bottles?if not you feed 1 drop each from 100 bottles to a spy. You find out but waste 99 bottles.
If you want a hint, email me at sjm1 AT williams.edu
Fantastic riddle, though I’ve heard it before….probably the hardest riddle I’ve ever come across. I certainly didn’t get it…
Let me know if you get it or if you need a hint.
Love the brain tease but didn’t have time to complete it. We got as far as they having 200 drops each