Tessellate S.T.E.M.S - Computer Science - School - Set 1 - Problem 1

Computer Science Level 2

In a cave, an archaeologist finds three chests: one labeled "Gold Coins," another "Silver Coins," and the other "Gold and Silver Coins." He knows from archaeological records that each label is written correctly but put on the wrong chest.

To figure out which is which, he may open a chest of his choice and take out a coin to see if it is gold or silver. However, because he does not want to mess with the historical setting, he is going to do this as few times as possible.

What is the minimum number of coins he needs to take out in order to figure out which chest is which?

This problem is a part of Tessellate S.T.E.M.S.

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Agnishom Chattopadhyay by Agnishom Chattopadhyay , 22, India

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1 solution

Yajur Phullera
Jan 12, 2018

Say chests are incorrectly labelled G, S, GS. If he take one from GS chest, it could only be a gold or silver. If it's gold, then the chest which is labelled sivler( can only contain gold-silver or gold coins) can't contain gold. So it has to gold-Silver and last chest is silver. Same applies if GS chest has silver.

0 Helpful 0 Interesting 0 Brilliant 1 Confused

But it nowhere says that we can't see the contents of a chest after opening it, so we don't really need to take a coin out, do we? All we have to do is just open the chest, look inside, and see if it has G, S or GS both. As simple as that.

Hetvi J - 3 years, 4 months ago

Yes, that was the intended solution. Great job!

Agnishom Chattopadhyay - 3 years, 4 months ago

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