1000 Coins and 10 Bags

A dealer has 1000 coins and 10 bags. He has to divide the coins over the ten bags so that he can make any number of coins simply by handing over a few bags. How must divide his money into the ten bags?


Answer: Arrange them in ascending powers of 2:

Bag #1: 1 coin
Bag #2: 2 coins
Bag #3: 4 coins
Bag #4: 8 coins
Bag #5: 16 coins
Bag #6: 32 coins
Bag #7: 64 coins
Bag #8: 128 coins
Bag #9: 256 coins
Bag #10: 489 coins



Notice bag #10 is a little short of 2*256, or 512. That's because you only have 1000 coins. The previous 9 bags have 511 coins in total, leaving only 489 for bag 10.

Anyway, you can dispense any amount of coins from 1 - 1000 by just choosing bags here.

Try any number: 617. Bag #10 + bag #8.

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