Q. You've got 27 coin, each of them is 10 g, except for 1. The 1 different coin is 9 g or 11 g (heavier, or lighter by 1 g). You should use balance scale that compares what's in the two pans. You can get the answer by just comparing groups of coins.
What is the minimum number weighings that can always guarantee to determine the different coin.


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Ans.
You can distinguish among 3**N cases in N weighings.
There are 54 possible cases in this puzzle [one of 27 coins is heavy or light].
So three weighings [27 cases] won't do it, but four [81 cases] can.