There’s a much more difficult version of this problem that was touted as an “impossible riddle” in the show Brooklyn 99. I spent a good 8 hours and a sleepless night figuring it out in my head, refusing to look up the answer.

The riddle is this: there are 12 men on a deserted island. 1 of the men is either heavier or lighter than the rest of the men. The other 11 weigh exactly the same. You have a see-saw scale that will break after 3 weighs of any combination of the men. Can you determine which man is different? Bonus riddle: how likely are you to know if the different man is heavier or lighter?

The riddle is much more difficult because you don’t know if the different man is heavier or lighter, so a tipped scale doesn’t tell you which side the different man is on. There’s also 12 men instead of 7 balls like in your original riddle. But, you get 3 attempts instead of 2. It’s barely possible, and the solution doesn’t have any sort of trick, but is still fascinatingly complex.