This is a beautiful riddle that I am borrowing from Alok Mittal’s Mathematical Circles class.

In a far away land, it was known that if you drank poison, the only way to save yourself is to drink a stronger poison, which neutralizes the weaker poison. The king that ruled the land wanted to make sure that he possessed the strongest poison in the kingdom, in order to ensure his survival, in any situation. So the king called the kingdom’s pharmacist and the kingdom’s sage, he gave each a week to make the strongest poison. Then, each would drink the other one’s poison, then his own, and the one that will survive, will be the one that had the stronger poison. The pharmacist went straight to work, but the sage knew he had no chance, for the pharmacist was much more experienced in this field, so instead, he made up a plan to survive and make sure the pharmacist dies. On the last day the pharmacist suddenly realized that the sage would know he had no chance, so he must have a plan. After a little thought, the pharmacist realized what the sage’s plan must be, and he concocted a counter plan, to make sure he survives and the sage dies. When the time came, the king summoned both of them. They drank the poisons as planned, and the sage died, the pharmacist survived, and the king didn’t get what he wanted.

What exactly happened there?

As always, please send your answers as comments within the blog (preferred), or send an e-mail to alokgoyal_2001@yahoo.com. Please do share the puzzle with others if you like, and please also send puzzles that you have come across that you think I can share in this blog.

Happy living!