Pain Meds
Zaux is on two types of medication.He must take one pill A and one pill B a day.He has to be careful not to take any more than one of each per day,as it would have side effects that will make him loopy.He can not take pill A without pill B,or vise versa, as this will also send him to la-la land.One morning, Zaux opens pill bottle A and taps out one pill into his hand.Grabbing bottle B, he does the same but by mistake, two B pills fell into his hand.
Looking down at the three pills,he can not tell them apart.They look alike in every way.He thought about it for a while,then did something which give him the correct dose.
What did Zaux do?
Looking down at the three pills,he can not tell them apart.They look alike in every way.He thought about it for a while,then did something which give him the correct dose.
What did Zaux do?
posted by Knightmare at
5:49 PM
24 Comments:
If the pill bottles started with the same amount of pills in each, then he can determine the one that he only took one from by counting what's left, make the 3 up to 2 of each, crush them together and take half of the mixture.
Zaux gets his meds in bulk and doesn't know how many should be left in the bottles
and he doesn't have to crush them
I can answer this one with authority ... I'd take all three ... "loopy" ain't all bad :-)
Discard the pills and get one from each bottle.
Or I could discard those 3,since I buy in bulk ... and be more careful when I pour them again.
:-) anonymous and I had the same thought
Zaux...you don't want to waste any
mmmmmmm ... good thought ... you got that right
I have 3 pills ... one A and two B and they indistinguisable in appearance. I get my wife to take any two of the pills. If she feels loopy, I know she took BB and I am left with an A. If she does not feel loopy, I know she took AB, and I am left with a B. Either way, I can select the appropriate next pill to get my correct dosage. With this procedure, I only waste two of my "precious meds" ... :-)
LOL Zaux...or you could give all three to the dog and see what happens
Nah ... can't do that ... he prefers Dilaudid ... :-)
Knightmare, I am stumped.... Chris's solution sounds like the best idea, but if you can't crush them, then I am puzzled.
hint:Chris was pretty close
I thought the idea Chris had of just adding one A pill, grinding up all four pills and taking half was pretty effective.
Same results can be obtained by cutting the three pills in half and taking half of each. You now have taken one B and 1/2 an A. Cut another A in half and take half of that. Take the remaining four halves tomorrow. Dog and spouse are out of luck...
-h
and Hagar is our winner!
or add another A pill,take all 4 at once and hope everything balances out(just a kick post)
I'd thought of that, but rejected it as Zaux, might take 4 halves which are all pill A (or B). That's why the must be ground.
hope my dog is not disappointed ... if he gets upset, he cusses for a week
Chris...if you put the left halves in one pile and the right halves in another,then you will know each pile will have 2 halves of pill B and 1 half of pill A.take another pill A and split it,adding each half to each pile.you now have 2 piles with 2 halves of each pill.
In my hand, I have
A B B
If I cut each pill in half and as I cut it, place the left half in pile 1, and right half in pile 2, here's what I have.
Pile 1:
A/2, B/2, B/2
Pile :
A/2, B/2, B/2
So I take one more pill from bottle A and cut it in half, placing half in each pile.
Now, I can take the 4 halves in either plie and have the correct dosage.
obviously, the 2nd plie is pile 2
I'll concede that.
If I was Zaux I would just guess.
You got a 1/3 chance of picking A. The next would automatically be okay, because it would be B.
You got a 2/3 chance of picking B first. The the next would be 1/2 of either making it okay or a screw up.
Therefore
(2/3)(1/2)+(1/3)=
(2/6)+(2/6)=
(4/6)=
2/3 chance of getting it right
If you get it right you know the remaining pill is B if you get it wrong you know the remaining pill is A.
It is sometimes fun to leave things up to chance
Posted by The Godson
If Zaux is so clumsy we can't trust him to shake out just 1 pill from each bottle, how do we expect him to keep track of half pills that he has cut up? He's already starting to get loopy from the delay of trying to figure out what to do!
I say, he should take a half of each AS he cuts them. Put the other half of each back in the continer, so they are out of the way when he cuts the next one.
Once the loopiness subsides, he can find a band-aid for his finger.
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