How Can Man Take 2 Pills to Stay Alive?

[T@P]

a man has two bottles, each containing ten pills. in order to stay alive, he must take two pills (one from each bottle) simlutaneously in order to stay alive. any other combination is fatal. unfortunately, he spills both bottles, and as a reslut has 2 pills in one bottle and none in the other, but 18 on the floor. he disovers that they all look the same, and even when he pulls out his analytical scale, he finds that they weigh the same.

how does he take his medicine? i know the answer, just looking for ideas/ cool solutions.

 

[cdhotfire]

call the doctor, and tell him to send the guy some more pills.

 

[BobG]

One way would be to cut all the pills into twenty pieces each, and take one piece from each pill.

There's a couple problems with this solution, though. You need twenty pill bottles because you can't mix any of the pills. Can you cut a pill into twenty equal pieces? There's a limit to how many times you can fold a dollar bill, so I'm sure there's a limit on how many times you can cut a pill without it just virtually disintegrating.

 

[ascky]

Or you could see if the pills dissolved, but then you wouldn't know how much to drink and might overdose.

But if you ground up a pill and weighed it (with your analytical scale), then ground up all the rest and mixed it all together thourougly, then you'd know how much of the powder to take.

 

[Rogerio]

One way would be to cut all the pills into twenty pieces each, and take one piece from each pill.

Almost there. Rememeber he needs 2 pills a day. So, cut the pills into just ten pieces each, and take one piece from each pill.

 

[T@P]

actually the idea is basically to disolve the pills in water and use your analytical scale to find the corect amount you need. the reason you sohuld be able to disolve them is the simple fact that they are pills; since you swallow them with water they must be somehow solubale. cutting pills is imprecise, and remember he will die if he doesn't get exactly the right amount :) (actually as bob said their is a limit to how many times you can cut a pill so this is impractical that way too)