[bushindo]

This is based on Sourabh's poison puzzle, which i must say is one of my favorites.

Let's say that you have n barrels of wine, one of which is poisoned and one of which contains the antidote. If a prisoner drinks from a poisoned barrel, he dies in 24 hours. But he drinks from the poisoned barrel and the antidote barrel, he'll be fine. Drink from the antidote barrel alone has no ill effects.

Let's say you have 5 prisoners that you are willing to sacrifice, and you got 48 hours. What is the maximum value of wine barrels n for which you are guaranteed to find the poisoned barrel?

[bonanova]

Must the antidote be drunk after the poison to be efficacious?

[bushindo]

Must the antidote be drunk after the poison to be efficacious?

No, the antidote would still be efficacious if drunk before the poison. I might be opening myself to loop holes here, but for clarify's sake let's say that the antidote has an effectiveness window of 2 hours. Any poison in the drinker's body system will be removed during that 2 hours. Therefore, drinking the antidote on the first day does not grant immunity from poison for the entire 48 hours.

[Guest]

No, the antidote would still be efficacious if drunk before the poison. I might be opening myself to loop holes here, but for clarify's sake let's say that the antidote has an effectiveness window of 2 hours. Any poison in the drinker's body system will be removed during that 2 hours. Therefore, drinking the antidote on the first day does not grant immunity from poison for the entire 48 hours.

But in this case i think you should mention the effectiveness window of antidote ... right???

[Guest]

But in this case i think you should mention the effectiveness window of antidote ... right???

I think he did...if you drink the antidote before any poison...you have 2 hours for it to be effective against any poison brought into your body afterwards...further understanding tells me you can drink the antidote first and hit up the poison as much as you want for up to 2 hrs., then you'll need to get the antidote back in your system(within the 24 hrs. tho)...if you drink the poison first you have to get the antidote into your system within 24 hours, cuz when 24 hours comes you are dead...that's how I understand it anyway

I'm still having trouble seeing this one...isn't it possible that everyone drinks from the antidote barrel before 24hrs. is up and then again before the other 24hrs.? with 2 barrels that's a possibility, but gets less probable adding more barrels...must be out of my league on this one...I'll quietly move to the back of the classroom and wait for someone else to answer it..