You are camping with your friends. You have a flashlight for any emergency and have brought 8 batteries along with you. Your brother calls to tell you that four of those batteries are already dead.
Your flashlight requires two working batteries to run. What is the least number of pairs you will need to test to guarantee that you can get the flashlight on ?
7
You must first divide the batteries in three groups: a group of two batteries and two groups of three batteries each. Now you have made sure that one of the group has two working batteries.
Now both the groups with three batteries can form three possible combinations and the group with two batteries has just one combination.
3 + 3 + 1 = 7.
