AHA! Puzzle This

By Michael H. Pryor

MAKE’s favorite puzzles. (When you’re ready to check your answers, visit makezine.com/12/aha.)

Poison Wine

An evil king has a cellar filled with 1,000 bottles of wine. An equally evil queen from a neighboring land plots to kill him and sends a servant to poison the wine. The king’s guards catch the servant after he has poisoned 1 of the 1,000 bottles. The guards don’t know which bottle was poisoned, but they know the poison is so strong that no matter how much it was diluted, ingesting any amount will be fatal. Furthermore, it takes exactly 1 month before it has an effect (after which it’s fatal immediately).

The king decides he will use 10 prisoners to test the wine. Being an extremely clever king, how does ...

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