>Jerry,
>
>You start at the 14th floor. If it breaks, you go to 1st floor, 2nd floor, upward till the 2nd ball breaks. If the second ball doesn't break by the 13th floor, then the answer is the 14th floor.
>
>If dropping from 14th floor does not break the ball, go to 27th floor and drop. If it breaks, go to 15th, 16th, 17th in ascending order until 2nd ball breaks.
>
>If it doesn't break on 27th, go to 39th floor, and so on.
>
>I think this provides the smallest maximum number of steps (14).

Ah, well I guess I flunked that one. Qsort beats bubble sort.

>
>On your suggestion, you keep going up 3 floors till the first ball breaks? So if the answer is the 98th floor, then you've made 34 drops to obtain the answer?
>
>>
>>I don't understand your solution. It is obvious one can't start at the 100th floor and work down. But, how do you garantee that one or both balls won't break before the 14th floor, if one starts at the first floor and works up, or won't bounce without breaking above the 14th floor?
>>
>>I would start at floor one and use a variation of the Hi-Low game, moving to the midpoints of each segment above. 1, 3, 6 .. If the ball breaks at 3 then try 2. If it breaks then 2 is the answer, otherwise 3. If the ball breaks at six we know it didn't break at 3, so that leaves 4 and 5 in that order. Try 4. If it breaks the problem is solved. Otherwise try 5. If it breaks the problem is solved. If it doesn't break then floor 6 is the lowest floor.
>>
>>Repeat the sequence in each split above.
>>JLK