math problem

[kai]

Thats the method I had in mind, I thought it was 15 for the binary to find heaviest. Then there are 4 contenders for second place so that takes 3. But the third heaviest could have been eliminated by the heaviest or the second heaviest. In the worst case where the two heaviest coins met at the end you will have all the non second place coins that the heaviest eliminated (3) and all the coints the second place eliminated (3) which will take 5 moves to sort through. Therefore I think this method takes 23.

So whats your method skates?