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Ten tasters finding one poisoned wine barrel

Question

Exactly one of nn barrels of wine is poisoned. Ten volunteers can taste wine; anyone who drinks poison dies exactly one month later and otherwise survives, and there is only time for a single round of tasting lasting that month. What is the largest nn for which the poisoned barrel can always be identified?

Short answer

10241024. Each volunteer's fate is one bit, so ten volunteers give 2102^{10} distinguishable outcomes. Label barrels 00 to 10231023 in binary and have volunteer kk sip every barrel whose kk-th bit is 11; the set of deaths spells out the poisoned label.

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