[jemfinch]

> The author should make it clear from the outset that the goal is to minimize the number of drops in the worst case, rather than to minimize the average case

If the probability of an egg breaking on any particular floor is uniform over all floors--something reasonable to assume unless you're told otherwise--the average case is the worst case.

[Fargren]

No. The worse case is when the topmost floor is the most likely to break the egg. And it's not reasonable to to assume anything about the distribution, so there's not a "most reasonable" case. Except maybe assuming that the higher the floor, the higher the chance of breaking the egg, simply because we are talking about things breaking and height plays a factor in that.

EDIT: actually, the worse case depends on the algorithm you are using; if you are using linear search, the worst case is when the egg won't break for any height. So yeah, in that case the distribution is uniform. But it seems like grasping at straws.