A doctor in Michigan has a sister who lives in California but the sister does not have any brother that lives in Michigan, how come??
:P

its you ...... neither ur brother nor ur sis

ritthe,
That is just a regular beam balance, you will not know the exact weight. Different one is heavier than the others.

"There are eight coins, they look exactly the same. One of them weighs slightly different from other seven. Now you are given a simple mechanical balance, which you can use no more than 2 times. How do you separate the different one from the pile. "

keep 2 coins aside and devide remainaing 6 coins in 2 sets of 3, put each set in two plates of balance.

If both are equal then the 2 unused ones can be weighed to find the heavier.

If one set of 3 is heavier then weigh 2 out of three, and fine the heaviest one.

you should have told earlier...... u just said different it means it can be lighter too

the soln;

wight 3 in each pan:

if it is balanced, the heavy one is in the remaing 2

if it is not balanced -

take two out and interchange 1 from the remaining 4 and weigh again

if it is balanced
the 1 you took out from the heavier side is the different one

if it is still not balanced
by interchanging you will know which one was making difference in the weight out of remaining 4

howz that?

*find

thats not possible the way u r saying....... look at my soln .... bulletproof

ohh i am sorry preeti ........ urs works fine too ....... i was trying to solve for the different weight heavier or light so came up with lng solution urs is short n sweet.

My bad Ritthe, should have said it in the question---

Nevertheless, pretty is right on!

what did you mean by --" if it is not balanced -
take two out and interchange 1 from the remaining 4 and weigh again " I am having hard time following this... take 2 out and interchange 1??

my interchange I meant from the remaining 4, put one coin from one pan to other and vice versa so that u will know which one is making the difference ........ i was looking for the soln for the coin making the diff ...... provided we don't know heavy or light ....... thats why ...... anyway enjoyed it. got more?

we can do that in 3 steps if we don't know if the different coin is heavy or light

It is same even if the different coin is lighter than others, isn't it?

* got it right after I posted that... anyway, ahile tatkalai ta aru chhaina... yeso kam pani ganu paro ni :)

yes pretty, its same if you know one is lighter, but problem is if you don't know if it is lighter or heavier, just different... then it's not the same...you'll have to go one more step, I think

but I was trying to solve if we don't know if the coin is heavy or light...... we know only that it is different ........ i was trying to tackle that problem ...... if you understand my soln you can do that in 3 steps ........ if no can you do that in 3 steps ... we don't know if its heavy or light

It says a doctor in Michigan, doesnot mean he needs to live in Michigan. He might be living in a close-by state, and still fits the criteria of the question.
But Can I Have The Address Of the Sister? So that I can scre* her, and end my virginity.

its more challenging than the original one please try and don't look at my previous soln ...... you will understand what i meant by interchange if you solve

Damn, I am a nerd here now, I thought nobody answered the question, but it was solved just in the second thread, which was hidden in my window. DAMN it.

its good to check how logical u are if u r comp science major

yeah, ritthe, I agree... more challenging, but I have already seen your soln :), and I think that's the answer...!

hetterika and preeti did u try the einstein one it will kill ur time easily