KCC's Quizzes: Contaminated Pills

1) Label the jars 1-8. Pull out a number of pills from each jar equal to the jar number (eg, 3 pills from jar #3).  Weigh all the pulled pills.  The weight should be 36,000mg (36g) if all the pills were OK but the weight will be smaller due to the pills that are contaminated.  The amount of milligrams that the weight is below 36,000mg is the number of the jar that is contaminated (eg, if the weight is less than 36,000g by 4mg, then bottle #4 is the contaminated bottle.)

2) I assume that each jar has at least 256 pills in them.  So, similar to number one, only this time take a number of pills equal to 2 to the exponent of the bottle number (eg, take 2^4 = 16 pills from jar #4).  Weigh all the pills and the weight reduction due to contaminated pills will be a number corresponding to the bottles that are contaminated.  You must look at the number in its binary form though (it will be an 8 bit number), so if the weight is short by 138mg, then its binary equivalent is 10001010 and therefore bottles 8, 4, and 2 are contaminated.)

Brian Barrett

Thanks Brian. I have given my feedback via email

Thanks Brian. I have given my feedback via email