The Dink Network

For the people that liked riddles, I have a new one. It's outstanding:
A king has 1000 bottles of wine. Someone poisons one of them. The king asks you to find the poisoned one. You have 10 people condanged to death. If one of them tastes from the poisoned bottle, he dies in one month. You have one month to find which is the poisoned bottle.

I ask the people which one tastes different, smells different or is just differently colored.

Dump all the wine and beat the King to death with his own limbs for asking you to do such a silly task... because you're just that much of a badass.

Hmmm... I will have to think on that one for a while. Currently all I can think of is the practical solution- Each man takes 100 sips throughout the day, each from a different bottle of wine.... while you will not discover exactly which wine it is, you will be limited to destroying only a 100 of them... Or to be more practical, the king should just drink brandy or champagne instead, but neither of these actually solve the problem itself- only the king himself... I know there is a solution, but I have not figured it out yet... me I have always preferred doing lateral thinking problems...

It's not lateral, it's logical.
Put it this way: it's binary.

//Am I the only one who's seen this something like a dozen times?

Poor me, this was never my strong point. I am sure that there is a simple solution, but, alas- it is not coming to me. I guess I am just not looking at it right.... *sigh*.

I say that the king should poison ALL the wine, therefore removing any doubt that any particular bottle is poisoned... then he gives away all his wine to his so-called *ally* for a celebration, and then the king himself divulges in a good glass of Sherry.

2^10=1024.... oh yeah... i remember this one I'll let someone else figure it out from here... and no it aint a simple answer, ya gotta know your math and binary

it could be like not binary but more a i dont know what its called but we learned it in statistics. like you have 1,2,3,4 what are all the possibilities it can be arranged? well you have 10 numbers (the prisoners) like this i guess

prisoner 1 sips drink 1
prisoner 2 sips drink 2
prisoner 3 sips drink 3

this gets us all the way up to drink 10

THEN

start doing combinations

prisoner 1 and prisoner 2 sips drink 11
prisoner 1 and prisoner 3 sips drink 12
prisoner 1 and prisoner 4 sips drink 13

do this until all 1000 bottles have been tested

and like say prisoner 4 and prisoner 6 die well then you look at what drink that prisoner 4 and 6 sipped from

is that remotely sensical?

Yep, that'd work

EDIT:
Terribly Late Addition:

While it isn't binary, as other people claim, it is a correct solution. Every bottle will have a unique prisoner-combo, so you can check it that way. Here's the binary way:

The drinks are numbered 1 to 1000, now number them binary from 1 to 1111101000. Those are 10 binary digits. Give drink 1 to prisoner 1. Give drink 2 (binary: 10) to prisoner 2, drink 3 (bin: 11) to 1 and 2, etc. Give drink 1000 to prisoners 10,9,8,7,6 and 4.

When you see dead prisoners, you can calculate the number of the poisoned drink this way:

There are n (say 5) dead prisoners, p_1, p_2, p_3 to p_n (so to p_5 in the example). Say prisoner 1, 4, 5, 9 and 10 are dead, then p_1 = 1, p_2 = 4, p_3 = 5, p_4 = 9 and p_5 = 10.

For every i where 1 <= i <= 10, do this:

d_i = 2^(p_i - 1)

So we get (in our example):

d_1 = 1
d_2 = 8
d_3 = 16
d_4 = 256
d_5 = 512

Add these: Drink 793 is poisoned.

O_o

Yes, magicman's solution is the good one. He's too good at this. I'll find something that he doesn't know .
Did I told you the one with the 30m rope, and you have to descend from a 40m building, and you can attach it at 40m and at 20m?

I assume you can't attach it at 40m, descend 20m and while still holding the rope, somehow grab the end and attach it at 20m, then let it fall and descend 20m?

Josh' solution works too, but converting between dead prisoners and poisoned bottle number is more difficult. Usually I don't go much further than this:

"Hmm... we need to do 1000 unique tests. We have 10 victims, that makes for 2^10 = 1024 possible unique tests. That's more than the amount of tests we need to do, so it's possible". For every 1000 different tests taken from the 1024 possible tests, every bijection function from [1..1000] to [1..1000] is a solution.

You told me that one with the rope, but I still haven't solved it. Is it possible to cut the rope?

Mehh, thats good, just not the sort of riddle that I am used to.

Here is a problem that always bugged me, it goes:

A man lives on the 15th floor of a large building. Every day he takes the elevator to the ground floor to go to work. Each day when he returns he stops on the 10th floor and walks 5 flights of stairs. When it is a rainy day, however, he goes straight to the 15th floor. Why is this?

The stairs between the 10th and the 15th are outside, and possibly with a nice view. When he goes to work, he's in a hurry, and has no time to enjoy the scenery/weather/fresh air/whatever.

VonZepplin: Maybe he can't reach the top floor button, 'cept with an umbrella? But that's given there's no elevator man and he gets home at a weird time with no one else there so he can't ask anyone to press the 15.

cypry: Take the stairs? That's probably what I'd do, anyway.

could it be he is a midget becus the elivator # wold be like this
15 14 13
12 11 10
9 8 7
6 5 4
3 2 1
botem
floor

Yeah, he is a midget and he can only reach the bottom when he has an umbrella.

He would only go to the tenth floor because the numbering is thus
14 15 16
11 12 13
10 9 8
7 6 5
4 3 2
1 G P

First off- the problem never stated that the 15th floor was the top- also it very likely that a residential structure with more than 15 floors would have its own parking garage. These details could vary depending on how you number your floors, as well as how the problem is told. But good job... that one took me a while to find a solution...

The building is a pyramid that is 40m tall with a roughly 41.8 degree angle where 30m would get you half way down where you can reattach and go the last 30m to the ground.

???? Why not take the elevator? ... It would also keep you from getting friction burns.

good point.. i hate friction burns but the riddle said we had to use a rope, can't break the rules now, that just wouldn't be right

lol... I thought you were talking about my riddle.

yeah, the other riddle kinda got lost in the mix. but yeah I liked your riddle too, freakin midgets

Yes, you can cut the rope.

Sorry for resurrecting this, but I wanted to give you the solution for the rope riddle. I'll start with a small hint:
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o
^
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What do you say now?

No ideeas? My hint wasn't clear?

Well, it'd have been a better hint like this:

Sissors.

Looks like hangman.

Seriously....just take the stairs.

Seriously.... you can't take the stairs. You have to cut the rope in one piece of 10m and one of 20. Make a small ring at the end of the first one, and divide the 20m rope in two. This way, you obtain a 20m rope, and after you descend 20m, you can still drag a 20m rope from it.

You'd have to be really talented to tie a rope to something while hanging from it.

As long as your not at the very ends, it wouldn't be *that* hard.

/whistles, walks off

Dammit, clever

You're a fireman, that's your job .

You guys are sooo....clever!