OpenEuphoria

Re: Puzzle challenge:

• Posted by "Kat" <gertie at visionsix.com> Aug 10, 2004
• 457 views

On 10 Aug 2004, at 11:24, Patrick Barnes wrote:

> 
> 
> It's not original, but it's an interesting puzzle:
> 
> Part A:
> You're doing tolerance testing on new high-strength crystal balls, and
> want to find out how much height they can be dropped from. You've been
> given two orbs to work with, and you intend to drop them from floors
> of an office building with a hundred floors (starting at floor 1, just
> above the ground).
> 
> Naturally, once one of your orbs breaks, you can't reuse it. Both of
> the glass orbs are manufactured to the same grade, so they will both
> break above a certain height, and both won't break below that.
> 
> What is the minimum number of 'drop tests' you have to perform to
> identify the top floor from which the glass orbs will survive a drop?
> (Worst case scenario)

One.
Drop it from the ground floor and it breaks, that's the top floor from which the
orbs will survive (worst case).

> Part B:
> Can you generalise this to f floors and b balls? What if f = 1000000
> and b = 500?

Worst case if b is given, is one: b.

Kat