Egg-Dropping Puzzle

Here’s a classic puzzle:

Each floor of a 100-story building has a balcony over which you can drop an egg and watch it hit the ground. The egg either breaks or survives the fall (and if it survives, it can be used again for another drop). You want to classify each floor as either an egg-breaking floor or a non-egg-breaking floor, and you have just two eggs for this job! What is the least number of egg-drops you should plan for in order to classify each and every floor? (Is it even, for sure, possible to do so?)

I offer my emotional reactions and personal process for thinking about this puzzle.
Egg-Drop VIDEO

And here is the follow-on essay that goes deep into all the math:
Egg Dropping Essay

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  Written for educators - and their students too! - this website, slowly growing, takes all the content Tanton has developed in his books, videos, and workshops, and organizes it into short, self-contained, and complete, curriculum units proving that mathematics, at all points of the school curriculum, can be joyous, fresh, innovative, rich, deep-thinking, and devoid of any rote doing! Let's teach generations of students to be self-reliant thinkers, willing to flail and to use their common sense to "nut their way" through challenges, to assess and judge results, and to adjust actions to find success. (Great life skills!)

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• Books

  • Thinking Mathematics! (TEN VOLUMES)
  • Solve This: Mathematical Activities for Students and Clubs
  • Encyclopedia of Mathematics
  • Geometry I & II

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