Can This Be The Answer??!!

[nightlyraver]

A friend of mine was recently on an interview for an engineer position at Google. He said that the interviewer asked him the following question, which if he answered correctly, would result in an imediate job offer. The interviewer himself did not even know the answer.

Here is the question:

You and 8 other people are on a boat, stranded in the middle of the ocean. You know that help will not arrive for 10 days, and that you have exactly enough water for 8 of you to survive for the 10 days. Therefore, you all have agreed to set one of the people off in a life boat in a long shot attempt to find land.

All you have is a fair coin with which to make the decision of who will be thrown off.

Problem: Find a way to FAIRLY decide who is thrown off using the coin. You may flip the coin as many times as you like, BUT you must come up with a DETERMINATIVE answer.


Does anyone know the answer to this problem? Is there an answer?

I have an answer that I believe is correct, and I will post it later for everyone's review.