100 Wires Answer

The minimal number of trips up and down is 1. That is, the wires can be identified with just one trip up and down.

There are at least two or three different ways to accomplish this, depending on what variations you count as different solutions.


Quoting Mitchell Rieder, who worded it nicely:

At bottom:

Make 49 pairs (leaving 2 wires unpaired).

At top:

Find 2 unpaired wires and match the 49 pairs. Take 1st unpaired wire and label it #1. Take 2nd unpaired wire label it #2. Label each wire in a pair #3 & #4, next pair of wires #5 & #6 and so on until the last pair is labeled #99 & #100. Connect #3 to #2, #5 to #4, #7 to #6 ... and #99 to #98. (Connecting all wires in series except #1 [and #100 --pjt]). _p At bottom:

With [conductance --pjt] meter connected to a pair and one unpaired, determine which lead is #1 (the only lead not connected in series, if meter is zero then it is #1, if infinity than it is #2). The other unpaired is then either #1 or #2. Disconnect 49 pairs but keep the wires togerther as mates. Connect meter to #2 and find #3 (the meter will read infinite). Mark #3's mate as #4 and reconnect #3 to #4. Leaving meter connected to #2 find #5 (the meter will read infinite). Mark #5's mate as #6 and reconnect #5 to #6. Continue in this fashion until you find and label #99, then the last wire will be #100.


Quoting Harri Hurme:

At bottom:

Connect wires to groups of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 wires.

At top:

Identify the groups. Label each wire based on its group: (A11), (A21,A22), (A31,A32,A33), (A41,A42,A43,A44), ... (...,A99), (A01,A01...A09,A00), (B99,B98...B91) ... B11.

Then take the A group with 10 wires in it. Take one of its wires and connect it to a 9 wire group (e.g. A09 to A99), take another an connect it to a 8 wire group (e.g. A08 to A88), et cetera, until you connect one to the single A wire (A01 to A11) and the tenth one (A00) remains unconnected.

Which of each pair of wire groups with the same number of wires is labeled A and which is B is unimportant, the difference can be seen later because one of the A group wires is connected to a 10 wire group but none of the B wires is.

Do the same detachment for each of the wires in group A9x and iterate for A8x ... and then for each B group.

At bottom:

Disconnect (electrically) the groups made at bottom but keep the wires together. Now it's trivial to check which wire is which.


My solution:

The idea that I invented, before hearing any of the above, is somewhat similar to Harri's solution.

At bottom:

Make groups of 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14 wires.This totals 99 wires, and you have 1 unconnected. Climb up. (Ouch.)

At top:

Measure the wires. Now you know the one distinct wire which is not connected, and you know which wires belong to the groups of 2, 3, 4, 6 ... 14 wires.

Take one wire from each of the groups and connect it to the known distinct wire (which was originally unconnected). This gives you a group of 13 wires, and you have 12 remaining groups, with 1, 2, 3, 5, 6 ... 13 wires.

Take, again, one wire from each of the groups of 2, 3, 5, 6 ... 13 wires, and connect it to the one lonely wire (which is the remaining one of the original 2 wire group). This gives you a group of 12 wires, and you have 11 remaining groups, with 1, 2, 4, 5, 6 ... 12 wires.

Take one wire from each of the 2, 4, 5, 6 ... 12 wires, and connect it to the one lonely wire (which is the remaining one of the original 3 wire group). This gives you a group of 11 wires, and you have 10 remaining groups, with 1, 3, 4, 5 ... 11 wires.

Take one wire from each of the 3, 4, 5 ... 11 wires, and connect it to the one lonely wire (which is the remaining one of the original 4 wire group). This gives you a group of 10 wires, and you have 9 remaining groups, with 2, 3, 4 .. 10 wires.

Now take one wire from each group, and just leave it unconnected so far. You get 9 distinct wires, and you have 9 groups of 1, 2, 3 ... 9 wires. Mark the unconnected wire that was one of the 2 wire group (of originally 6 wires).

Take one wire from each of the groups of 2, 3, 4 ... 9 wires, and connect it to the one lonely wire (which is the remaining one of the original 6 wire group). This gives you a group of 9 wires, and you have 8 remaining groups, with 1, 2, 3 ... 8 wires.

Continue this iteration, producing groups of 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3 and 2 wires. You have 1 wire left, and you cannot leave it unconnected because then you would have 2 unconnected wires left of the original 14 wire group. Therefore, connect it to the other unconnected wire that you marked before (of the original 6 wire group). You have now 8 unconnected wires, two groups of 2 wires, and groups of 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12 and 13 wires. (This totals 8+2+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10+11+12+13 = 100, so it matches.) Climb down. (Phew!)

At bottom:

Measure the wires to find out the new groupings made at top floor. By cross-checking the groups, you can now identify which wire is which. The only problem is that there are two groups of 2 wires; these you can identify because one of them has wires from original groups of 13 and 14, and the other has wires from the original groups of 6 and 14.


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