Alternator Coins
Combinatorics
2016-05-19 v1 History and Overview
Abstract
We introduce a new type of coin: \textit{the alternator}. The alternator can pretend to be either a real or a fake coin (which is lighter than a real one). Each time it is put on a balance scale it switches between pretending to be either a real coin or a fake one. In this paper, we solve the following problem: You are given coins that look identical, but one of them is the alternator. All real coins weigh the same. You have a balance scale which you can use to find the alternator. What is the smallest number of weighings that guarantees that you will find the alternator?
Cite
@article{arxiv.1605.05601,
title = {Alternator Coins},
author = {Benjamin Chen and Ezra Erives and Leon Fan and Michael Gerovitch and Jonathan Hsu and Tanya Khovanova and Neil Malur and Ashwin Padaki and Nastia Polina and Will Sun and Jacob Tan and Andrew The},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1605.05601},
year = {2016}
}
Comments
10 pages