This should be a simpler one…..

You have two pill bottles, one marked Pill A, the other Pill B. You need to take exactly one each per day. If you take 2 of the B’s you will die. Okay, you shook one of the A pills into your hand, however when you were shaking out the B pill, 2 accidentally fell out. Now the pills look exactly alike, taste the same, are identical in markings. In other words, one cannot tell them apart. What are you to do, what with 3 pills of undetermined make-up in your hand? You cannot throw the 3 pills away because you need the take them all.

You throw them away and get another two pills out.

It says in the riddle ” You cannot throw the 3 pills away because you need the take them all. “

Then you get your prescription refilled.

For the next three days you take an A and an Unknown.  It doesn’t say that if you miss a B you will die, nor does it say that if you take 2 A’s you will die.

Let’s assume you can’t do that. Assume it’s something like antibiotics where you are supposed to take the full dose.

Don’t be contrary just because you’re not seeing it right away.

Charybdis - 29 August 2005 07:47 PM

For the next three days you take an A and an Unknown.  It doesn’t say that if you miss a B you will die, nor does it say that if you take 2 A’s you will die.

Not the answer I’m looking for. Though it’s a good thought.

Cut each of the three pills in half and separate them into two piles with half of each pill in each pile. Take another pill A and cut it in half and put one half in each pile. Take one pile of pills today and the next tomorrow.

My idea was to crush them and mix them all together, but your answer works too.

Those ideas work.  However, I have a couple of my own.

Solution #1:
Put the mixed-up pills aside.  Take one of each pill from the bottles like you normally would.  Call up a lawyer, the FDA, the news people, the ACLU, the CIA, and anybody else you can find the telephone numbers for.  Start a lawsuit against the pharmaceutical company for making such important and dangerous pills indistinguishable from each other.  Settle out of court with the agreement that they provide you with one A pill and two clearly-labeled B pills to make up for the ones you mixed up, plus $180 million for emotional trauma.  Write up your memoirs of your ordeal and sell them to a publishing company.  Get the book made into a based-on-a-true-story Lifetime Original Movie.  Reap your share of the profit royalties.  Appear on Oprah.

Solution #2:
Take two of the three pills at random.  See if you die.  If you don’t, take the remaining pill along with an A pill the next day.  Be more careful in the future.  If you do die, haunt the bottle of B pills.  Get it sold on eBay.

Acci

Buba had the answer I was looking for, tho they were all good ideas.

I’m going to have to just leave this one alone…