Practice
Resources
Contests
Online IDE
New
Free Mock
Events New Scaler
Practice
Improve your coding skills with our resources
Contests
Compete in popular contests with top coders
logo
Events
Attend free live masterclass hosted by top tech professionals
New
Scaler
Explore Offerings by SCALER

Prisoners and Poison


A bad king has a cellar of 1000 bottles of delightful and very expensive wine.

A neighboring queen plots to kill the bad king and sends a servant to poison the wine.
Fortunately (or say unfortunately) the bad king’s guards catch the servant after he has only poisoned one bottle.
Alas, the guards don’t know which bottle but know that the poison is so strong that even if diluted 100,000 times it would still kill the king.

Furthermore, it takes one month to have an effect. The bad king decides he will get some of the prisoners in his vast dungeons to drink the wine. Being a clever bad king he knows he needs to murder as less prisoners as possible – believing he can fob off such a low death rate – and will still be able to drink the rest of the wine (999 bottles) at his anniversary party in 5 weeks time.

In the worst case, what is the minimum number of prisoner he would have to kill in order to find out the poisoned bottle? Do note that the king wants to minimize the number of prisoners involved in the experiment. He might decide to kill every prisoner involved in the experiment if he feels that they may tell the world about his evil plans.

Answer is a integer. Just put the number without any decimal places if its an integer. If the answer is Infinity, output Infinity.

Feel free to get in touch with us if you have any questions

Hints
  • Solution Approach
  • Complete Solution
Asked In:

Discussion


Loading...
Click here to start solving coding interview questions
Free Mock Assessment
Fill up the details for personalised experience.
All fields are mandatory
Current Employer *
Enter company name *
Graduation Year *
Select an option *
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
2025
2026
2027
2028
Phone Number *
OTP will be sent to this number for verification
+1 *
+1
Change Number
Phone Number *
OTP will be sent to this number for verification
+1 *
+1
Change Number
Graduation Year *
Graduation Year *
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
2025
2026
2027
2028
*Enter the expected year of graduation if you're student
Current Employer *
Company Name *
Please verify your phone number
Edit
Resend OTP
By clicking on Start Test, I agree to be contacted by Scaler in the future.
Already have an account? Log in
Free Mock Assessment
Instructions from Interviewbit
Start Test