You have 13 bottles of wine. One bottle contains a deadly poison. You have 4 lab rats. Which bottle is poison?

Question

Ok a couple more details. One sip kills the mouse. And the poison takes one day to work. And you only have one day.
The trick is mixing the drinks, but I still dont see how its possible.
OK and heres the original text In case something is not clear.
"Bugsy procures 13 bottles of wine. One bottle contains a deadly poison. With the help of four lab rats, how can they determine which one contains the fatal potion?"

Answer 1

You take 4 cups and in each cup mix 3 vine bottles so in the end you have one bottle left. That look something like this:



0----0----0----0----0----0----0----0----0----0----0----0----0

---\--|---/---------\---|---/--------\---|---/---------\---|---/

-----4----------------4----------------4---------------4



0 - Bottle

4 - Cup



You give each cup to each lab rat. If no rat dies the last bottle is the poisoned one. If one rat dies you have the remaining 3 rats on witch you test the 3 bottles from the group with a dead rat. In that case one rat will die and that will let you know which bottle is the poisoned one.



That is if you don't have the time limit that you set at first. The original text does not mention any time limit so i worked from there.

Hope i helped.

Answer 2

Put one bottle to the side

Mix one lot of six

Mix the remaining six.



Give one rat the first six

Give another rat the other six



If no rats die then the one you put aside is poison.



If a rat dies then you know which batch of six contains the poison bottle.



You now have 3 rats left



Mix two batches of 3.



When one rat dies you now have the poison isolated to 3 bottles and 2 rats left



give each rat some from one of the 3 bottles.



One dead rat = that's the poison



No dead rats = it's the other bottle

Answer 3

positioned one bottle to the side mixture one lot of six mixture the relax six. supply one rat the 1st six supply yet another rat the different six If no rats die then the only you positioned aside is poison. If a rat dies then you recognize which batch of six is composed of the poison bottle. you at the instant have 3 rats left mixture 2 batches of three. while one rat dies you at the instant have the poison remoted to 3 bottles and 2 rats left supply each and every rat some from between the three bottles. One ineffective rat = it somewhat is the poison No ineffective rats = it somewhat is the different bottle

Answer 4

I don't see how mixing the drinks will work either :P. I know that would dilute the poison, but you wouldn't be able to figure out which bottle it's coming from. Or, I guess you could get the rats to sniff them.



@ drew: Lol. Until I read your answer, I didn't realize it was that simple.



Oh, I get it now xD. It's sort of like the one with the bridge and flashlight.

Answer 5

give each rat 3 different tastes ( that gets through 12 bottles ) if no rats are dead bthe next day its the only bottle left which was not used, if one rat is dead the next day you will still have three lab rats left and only three obvious choices of bottles tu use on three rats thus after a maximum of two days the next rat to die will determine your poison bottle

Answer 6

Bugsy looks at his receipt to see which one came from the poison store.



or, alternative answer:



Bugsy checks the ingredients on the wine bottles. The one that has anything besides "wine" as an ingredient is poison.

Answer 7

bottle 1 to mouse 1

bottle 2 to mouse 2

bottle 3 to mouse 3

bottle 4 to mouse 4

bottle 5 to mouse 1, 2

bottle 6 to mouse 1, 3

bottle 7 to mouse 1 ,4

bottle 8 to mouse 2, 3

bottle 9 to mouse 2, 4

bottle 10 to mouse 3, 4

bottle 11 to mouse 1, 2, 3

bottle 12 to mouse 1, 2, 4

bottle 13 to mouse 1, 3, 4 or to none

From the above you can see which mouse needs to drink from which bottles mix



You wait 24 hours and see who is dead and who is alive.

so is 1,4 are dead you know it is bottle 7. if it was bottle 12 2 was dead as well but he is not, and if it was bottle 1 4 would be alive.

Answer 8

the one closest to the rats

Answer 9

whichever rat dies from the one tells which one is poison

Answer 10

ahhh ti complicated