Process

At first I came at this problem thinking it would be best to find some sort of statistical way
of doing it. But after about 20-30 minutes of thinking for some kind of algebraic expression or
inequality.(i though it may be an inequality since we are working on that) I then just started
guessing a checking. The first one I did was finding the king's answer of three tries. I found that
having 4 bags on one side and 4 on the other (8 total). The pan balance would fall one way, the
way it falls is the side the lighter bag is on. He then could take the 4 bags from the bottom side
as one of them is the lighter one. He can distribute those evenly 2 bags on left 2 on right (4
total). Then which side was leaning down also had the lighter bag. Now I was left with two bags
and distributed those on both side of the pan scale (1 left, 1 right, 2 total). The side that went
down is the lighter bag, this is one way the king's answer of 3 could work. I then spent 30
minutes trying out different methods in my head and writing them on paper. I came out with no
methods with less than 3 times.

Solution
The least amount of times the pan balance could be used in 3 times, the amount the
king thought he could use it. I found that having 4 bags on one side and 4 on the other (8 total).
The pan balance would fall one way, the way it falls is the side the lighter bag is on. He then
could take the 4 bags from the bottom side as one of them is the lighter one. He can distribute
those evenly 2 bags on left 2 on right (4 total). Then which side was leaning down also had the
lighter bag. Now I was left with two bags and distributed those on both side of the pan scale (1
left, 1 right, 2 total). The side that went down is the lighter bag.

Evaluation
I originally looked at this problem being easy. I was really confused that the answer
could either be a finite number of times with a justification or just the king's answer. I spent way
too much time trying to find a better pan scale usage amount. I came up with nothing except the
kings way. The POW was super disappointing because I was unable to come up with a
satisfying amount less than 3 with a justification.