Problem:

A king has 1000 bottles of wine, one of which is poisoned. A single sip of the poisoned wine is enough to be fatal within 24 hours. The king has 10 prisoners to test which bottle is poisoned. How can he find the poisoned bottle in one day?

Scroll to the bottom of the page for the answer

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Solution:

Number each bottle and convert the number into binary. Assign each prisoner to a binary digit position. Each prisoner drinks from bottles where their digit is '1'. The binary outcome (alive or dead) after 24 hours will point to the poisoned bottle.