Tanya Khovanova has posted a very nice fake coin weighing problem on her math blog.
It goes beyond the usual coin problem by introducing the concept of a "revealing coefficient." The idea is to solve the coin weighing problem in a way that gives away as little information as possible about the identity of which particular coins are fakes.
I've found one solution, which I've posted as a comment to her blog. It gives a revealing coefficient of about 78%. I suspect it's possible to do better, because I didn't think for very long before I came up with my solution. If you want to see if you can get a solution with a lower revealing coefficient, go to her post on Unrevealing Weighings and try it for yourself.
Update: I now realize that I misread the original problem, so my originally posted "solution" does not actually solve the problem. I've now posted a new solution that I think works--but I hope someone will post a more clever one that improves the revealing coefficient that my simple approach yielded.
Showing posts with label coin puzzles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label coin puzzles. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
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