A king has 1000 bottles of wine. A neighboring queen plots to kill him and has poisoned one of the bottles. The poison is so potent that even if diluted by a million, it would still kill the king. The poison takes 24 hours to take effect. The king has 10 servants. How can he determine which bottle is poisoned in just one day?
Answer
Number the bottles 1 to 1000 in binary. Have each servant drink from all bottles where their position bit is 1. After 24 hours, the pattern of dead servants will give the binary representation of the poisoned bottle.