SUMS: White -- Counterfeit Coin Conundrums

This week’s SUMS talk is being given by PhD graduand Gareth White.  

Abstract: 
A classic problem states: Given twelve coins, with 11 identical coins and one
counterfeit coin with a different weight (otherwise identical), as well as a balance
scale, how can you identify the counterfeit coin using only 3 weighings? I will be
discussing this problem, as well as generalisations (such as determining the maximum
number of coins that will allow us to identify a counterfeit coin in k weighings, etc.),
and discuss how this relates to things such as Hamming Codes and Information Theory.