A Box of Defective Balls - Challenging Interview Puzzles

Puzzle Details : 

You have 10 boxes of balls (each ball weighing exactly 10 gm) with one box with defective balls (each one of the defective balls weighs 9 gm). You are given an electronic weighing machine and only one chance at it. How will you find out which box has the defective balls?

Solution

Explanation :

In order to solve this problem, you have to leverage the fact that you know exactly what each good ball is supposed to weigh and what each defective ball is supposed to weigh. Many of us instinctively will take one ball out of each box and try to find a way to make it work but the trick is to take a different number of balls from each box.

The number of balls you pick from each bag is equal to the box number. For example,

pick 1 ball from box 1,

2 balls from box 2,

3 balls from box 3, and so on.

In total, you will have 55 balls. If all of the boxes have good balls, then the total weight of these balls would be 550gm.

If box 1 has defective balls, then the total weight should be 1gm less than expected (only one ball weighing 9 gm). If box 2 has defective balls, then the total weight should be 2gm less than expected (two balls weighing 9 gm). 

So once you weigh the set of chosen balls, find out the difference between the total weight and the expected weight. That number represents the box number that contains the defective balls.