The servant that put the poison in will be one of the testers? Thus, to save his skin, he will point it out perhaps? Then, the bottle can be tested by a prisoner (or nine) to prove it.

 

Easy!

He tells one prisoner to drink from 500 of the bottles and one to drink from the other 500.

Then, one dies and we know which 500 he drank from. King tells one prisoner to drink from 250 bottles and one to drink from the other 250.

Then, one dies and we know which 250 he drank from. King tells one prisoner to drink from 125 bottles and one to drink from the other 125.

It goes on like this - the king cuts the choices in half each time until he ends with one, 10 people will die and it will take 10 months.

 

I'm not sure if this is correct, because the way I figure it, everyone is just as likely to die/live.

edit: oh wait... that's not entirely true, it are only 1000 bottles after all

edit again: ok I've thought about it more, and the king can make it more likely for certain people to die than others, or to give everyone an equal chance of dying. He could also make it (a little) more likely for everyone to die, or for no one to die, depending on how much he hates them. I personally would make it more likely for no one to die in case the Queen sends someone else in.

ok, I'm going back to my ass shooting game.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by vjarnot
[B]Easy!

He tells one prisoner to drink from 500 of the bottles and one to drink from the other 500.

Then, one dies and we know which 500 he drank from.

 

Hmmm... maybe I should have read the whole thing, oh well...

 

1024, 512, 256, 128, 64, 32, 16, 8, 4, 2....10 numbers, pfb's hint includes the word siginificant (numbers?)...

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by JonBoy
[B]

The servant that put the poison in will be one of the testers?

 

You're on the right track... now how did he do it??

 

That's what's driving me nuts!

 

If you cut each of those numbers in half and add them up, you get 1023...but this is dealing with 1000. I'm trying to figure out the correlation...