Friday, June 23, 2006

One more

Baby F needs to take her vitamins, but she has a problem. There are 4 bottles of vitamins which look the same (her friend E doesn't know any better, and she tore the labels off earlier) but one of them is soy based, and she is allergic to soy! The other three bottles contain different vitamins, and she needs to take 1 of each of them.

There is only one difference between the pills - the right vitamins weigh 1 gram, and the soy based ones weight 1.1 grams. Baby F received a scale for her birthday from her grandfather, the defender of small children and poultry. What a fortuitous gift! The only problem is, the scale is electronic, and the batteries have become worn down from weighing blocks and babydolls. Baby F only has enough battery power to make 1 weighing, so she must use it wisely.

How can she use the scale to accurately determine which pills are safe with only 1 weighing?

2 comments:

The Krunchy Krab said...

It may be necessary to point out that this scale does not weigh two things against each other - this is the sort of scale where you just place something on the tray and it tells you how much it weighs.

The Krunchy Krab said...

Solution:

Remove 1 pill from the first bottle, 2 from the second, 3 from the third, and 4 from the fourth. Weigh them together. If it weighs 10.1 grams, bottle 1 has the soy pills. 10.2 grams - bottle 2, 10.3 grams - bottle 3, 10.4 grams - bottle 4.