Picky Pea Problem
2025-09-21
Problem
You're making a pea casserole for your friends and bought 9 cans of 100 normal peas. Your friend Benjamin is a picky eater, so you buy an extra can of 100 special peas to make him a special dish. Each normal pea weighs 1.0 gram, while each special pea weighs 0.9 grams.
Before you start cooking the casserole, you realize you've mixed up the cans! The cans are all open (but not mixed together yet) and you have a disposable electronic scale that can be used exactly once to find the weight (in grams) of any number of peas from any number of cans.
How can you find out which can has the special peas?
Solution
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