Re: [math-fun] poisoned wine bottles

On Thu, Nov 29, 2012 at 11:53 AM, Thomas Colthurst <thomaswc@gmail.com>wrote:

I've been playing with these because I really want to find an unique union code for n=15 of size >1000 (i.e., show that you can uniquely identify the two poisoned wine bottles with only 15 bottles).

That's below the information-theoretic minimum. There are 1000-choose-2 = 499500 pairs of wine bottles; only with 19 rats could the 2^19 = 524288 outcomes possibly pick out a unique one. --Michael -- Forewarned is worth an octopus in the bush.