Coin conundrum

One chilly evening, Badger and Coyote were sitting by the campfire when they unearthed a curious old chest buried beneath a tree.

Inside, they found 27 shiny gold coins and an ancient balance scale. But there was a catch.

Badger held up one of the coins and said, “Something’s wrong here. One of these coins is a counterfeit, but it’s so subtle that we can’t tell just by looking." Coyote, always the clever one, smirked and said, "Well, at least we have this scale.

But we don’t want to waste time weighing coins one by one. Let’s figure out the fewest number of weighings we need to be sure we find the counterfeit coin."

Badger thought for a moment. "The counterfeit coin is slightly lighter, so it’ll tip the scale. But how many times do we have to weigh the coins to find it?"

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