My friend Chris D. shared this with a group of us and I thought I would re-post it here. We worked out several solutions, but one quickly rose to the top. Leave your solutions in the comments. I will reveal our solution next week.
~JeffreyDumbass, M.D.
From http://www.defectiveyeti.com/archives/000339.html
You have Some Terminal Condition, which necessitates taking two pills a day: one Pill A and one Pill B. If you neglect to take either pill, you die; if you take more than one A or more than one B, you die. If you don't take them at exactly the same time, you die.
This morning you are going through your usual routine. You pick up your bottle of A Pills and gently tap one into your palm. Then you pick up your bottle of B Pills and tap it, but two pills accidentally fall into your hand. You now hold three pills (one A and two Bs), you don't know which are which, and they are completely indistinguishable from each other. The A Pills are the same color as the B Pills, they are the same shape, same size -- they are identical in every respect. Man, your doctor is a dumbass. But he's a rich dumbass, because he's charging you $10,000,000 a pill! So you dare not throw any away.
Thus, the puzzle: what can you do to ensure that you take only one A Pill and only one B Pill today, without wasting any pills (either today or in the future)?
3 comments:
Take all the pills, cut them in half so that you have two sets of three half pills, keeping careful not to mix them. Take another A pill, and cut that in half. Add one of those halves to the first set of three halfs, and the other to the second set. You now have two sets of halves. In each set is two halves of a B pill and two sets of an A pill.
Or you could just take two pills and feed them to your cat. If the cat dies, then the remaining pill is an A pill, if your cat lives, then the remaining pill is a B pill (but that would be a waste of two pills and a cat...)
You take another pill A, and grind 2 pill a and 2 pill b together, mix it into powder, split it into half and half.
We have both of the top solutions! Thank you Pete and Yu. Personally I came up with Yu's as well, with a twist of mixing it with a liquid. Chris D had the same as Pete.
Thank you both for posting!
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