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Finding the bag of faulty coins in one weighing

Question

You have ten bags of coins. Genuine coins weigh 1010 g each, but every coin in exactly one bag is faulty and weighs 11 g away from 1010 g (either heavier or lighter). Using a digital scale that shows exact weight, how can you find the faulty bag with just one weighing?

Short answer

Take kk coins from bag kk for k=1,…,10k=1,\dots,10 and weigh all 5555 together. Genuine coins would weigh 550550 g, so the reading differs from 550550 by exactly kk grams, where kk is the faulty bag's number; the sign also tells you heavier or lighter.

Adapted from Zhou, A Practical Guide to Quantitative Finance Interviews, sec. 2.5 Series Summation, 'Counterfeit coins I', p.18; question and answer rewritten by SelfMadeQuant.com.

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