Albert Einstein's riddle

[Darkness]

Here's a riddle that was going around at my work. Maybe you'll like it too.:D


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ALBERT EINSTEIN'S RIDDLE

ARE YOU IN THE TOP 2% OF INTELLIGENT PEOPLE IN THE WORLD?
SOLVE THE RIDDLE AND FIND OUT.

There are no tricks, just pure logic, so good luck and don't give up.

1. In a street there are five houses, painted five different colours.
2. In each house lives a person of different nationality
3. These five homeowners each drink a different kind of beverage, smoke
different brand of cigar and keep a different pet.

THE QUESTION: WHO OWNS THE FISH?

HINTS

1. The Brit lives in a red house.
2. The Swede keeps dogs as pets.
3. The Dane drinks tea.
4. The Green house is on the left of the White house.
5. The owner of the Green house drinks coffee.
6. The person who smokes Pall Mall rears birds.
7. The owner of the Yellow house smokes Dunhill.
8. The man living in the centre house drinks milk.
9. The Norwegian lives in the first house.
10. The man who smokes Blends lives next to the one who keeps cats.
11. The man who keeps horses lives next to the man who smokes Dunhill.
12. The man who smokes Blue Master drinks beer.
13. The German smokes Prince.
14. The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
15. The man who smokes Blends has a neighbour who drinks water.

ALBERT EINSTEIN WROTE THIS RIDDLE EARLY DURING THE 19th CENTURY. HE
SAID THAT 98% OF THE WORLD POPULATION WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO SOLVE IT.

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The claims about the 98% of the world won't be able to solve this are highly exaggerated.
I got it in 15 minutes and I'm definately not in the top 2% of the most intelligent people in the world.

BTW: Don't google on this, 'cause the answer can also be found on the internet

PS: There's more than one right answer. ;)

[Rik Meleet]

Question: Do the housenumbers increase or decrease from left to right ?

Left 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 right

or:

Left 5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1 right

That does make a difference, you know ;)

[Plux]

Isn't this just a regular logigram (though maybe a really hard one?) I'll get back on it :)

[Rik Meleet]

If you assume that "1" is most left and "5" is most right and (hint 4) The Green house is [u]immediately</u> to the left of the white house; it is not even a hard Logigram. I've solved that quickly.

What I am trying to do is assume the Green House is not [u]immediately</u> to the left, but [u]somewhere leftish</u> of the whitehouse and see If I can get a different -correct to all hints- result where the fish has a different owner. That indicates the hints aren't complete to get a unique answer.

[Darkness]

quote:Originally posted by Rik Meleet

Question: Do the housenumbers increase or decrease from left to right ?

Left 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 right

or:

Left 5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1 right

That does make a difference, you know ;)


Just usual numbering Rik, no dirty tricks.

Left to right: 1-2-3-4-5

[Darkness]

@Plux: Yes, it is.


quote:Originally posted by Rik Meleet

If you assume that "1" is most left and "5" is most right and (hint 4) The Green house is [u]immediately</u> to the left of the white house; it is not even a hard Logigram. I've solved that quickly.


True. That is the logically correct assumption that Einstein made in his riddle. This is the solution I got in 15 minutes

quote:Originally posted by Rik Meleet

What I am trying to do is assume the Green House is not [u]immediately</u> to the left, but [u]somewhere leftish</u> of the whitehouse and see If I can get a different -correct to all hints- result where the fish has a different owner. That indicates the hints aren't complete to get a unique answer.


Now that is the more intriguing way to look at this.
Yes, there is a different, but still quite correct, solution to this riddle. I know of at least one (though my girlfriend came up with it [blush2] ), but maybe you can find another?

[digger760]

nice puzzle..took me about 30 mins..but i had written all the known combinations onto sheets of paper and I wrote what i thought was definite onto the master sheet ...but then i lost it(about 1/2 completed at the time) when one of the lads in the office cracked a joke and I laughed and my master sheet blew away (i could not find it[???]). Fortunatley i rememberd my answers and carried on to solve it :)

[digger760]

Perhaps Einstien solved this in his head...I dont think i could have kept track of the combinations in my head. I wrote them all down on paper each known combination as a 5x5 matrix, then tried to match them up until they fit

i.e
if the 1st house is Norwegian
the second colour blue
the 3rd house is a milker drinker,
then the only place for the green house next to the whit house id 4th and 5th,
that follows that the only place for the Brit in the read house is 3rd.
then iirc that means the yellow house with the Dunhill smokes can only fit into the 1st house
from here it get slightly tricker..but i tried a combination of cat,water,blends until the rest of the items also fitted in.

but if the green house was not nessesarily immediately left of the white house..then i suspect that there is no solution, but it also make many more combinations to try before a correct solution is found (i.e immediately next to the white house)

[barbu1977]

http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/2004-May/222349.html

quote:Actually you're just confusing your Einsteins. Note that the problem
page states it was published early in the 19th century. This is
because it had nothing to do with Albert Einstein, the disoverer of
relativity.

Actually it was created by Al Einstein, and he was really quite famous
for it, until that Albert guy came along a century later. So then
this new guy has a little theory or two, and suddenly everybody
forgets about Al. Kind of a sad story, actually.


I assume it is true, I did not search other sources though

[Darkness]

@Barbu: Sure, that's possible. I never did a search or anything on if it really was written by Albert Einstein. I posted it like I got it in my email, and IMHO it doesn't matter who wrote it, 'cause it's just a good exercise in logic... :)

[barbu1977]

Yep, thanks for entertaining us. I just wanted to add a a touch of trivia to the topic.

[WackenOpenAir]

No assumptions are even needed.
Multiway hint combining is not needed a lot either. (once i think)

Einstein doesn't have an optimistic view on humanity :D (unless he means solving it without paper)