That was fun. At first I didn't realize there was a question "Who has the fish?" So I kept looking at the list of questions over and over trying to figure out why I was missing one of the pets.
I have realized that there was a game that I played as a child that had the same, um, punchline...
Repressed memories and all...
You should have just kept your mouth shut. I was happy to simply acknowledge the fact you're really brainy. Now you've gone and taken the shine off it by admitting you had an advantage. Unless New also relied on repressed memories, I will assume until further notice that he is much brainier than you, billybob.
When you and Mr H were indulging in your little intellectual masturbation session above, I was thinking that assumptions are often required for riddle solving. But after being reminded of Petals Around the Rose, it's struck me that while Einstein's riddle requires at least one assumption, it was making assumptions that screwed me, and I suspect others, with Petals. It seems people fall into two camps with it - those who solve it relatively quickly and those who are stumped. Did you read the story about Bill Gates trying to solve it? Trés droll. I admit I gave up on Petals after about 15 minutes partly because I couldn't bear the idea it would take me as long or longer than Bill.
Thanks for your concern about my bad riddle experience, ragingloogie, but my comments were tongue in cheek so there's really no need to feel sorry for me. Nor will I be bothered if, as I suspect will be the case, most here solve it in a snap. I have long been convinced that while my fellow members may enjoy an above average level of intelligence and display formidable abilities when it comes to reason and logic, as far as understanding really useful stuff like human behaviour and interaction goes, they're completely useless and I'm way out in front. Hence, my illustrious position as one of only 2 cool AI members. It works well though. I have a bunch of genius dorks I can rely on when necessary and they have someone to explain to them how to buy milk without logging in as root.
By way of demonstration, please be aware that this comment
Quote:
back in the day, it might have been a challenge then
makes non-geniuses like me go like this because it is very silly. As there is no specialist kowledge required to solve Einstein's riddle (you don't need to understand the Theory of Relativity, for instance), it would have been no more difficult for someone in the late 19th century than it is for anyone today. See I have just saved you from repeating such nonsense in public and having people guffaw at you.
Phew. Used a pen and a paper. Took me about 10 mins, but I was emailing and coding at the same time. I realized about halfway through that most of the hints are useless - only 5 of them had any bearing to the actual puzzle
Phew. Used a pen and a paper. Took me about 10 mins, but I was emailing and coding at the same time. I realized about halfway through that most of the hints are useless - only 5 of them had any bearing to the actual puzzle
Really, so you solved the problem using only five of the hints. Which five would those happen to be, and how are all four of the fish owner's other attributes revealed by them?
I only looked at the 4 that gave the pet each person had. That left one person who hadn't been given a pet. I then checked my answer on the page the original question came about - and was right.
No, but that wasn't the question. The question was - who has the fish? The only info I could give was what he smoked, what pet he had, and his nationality. But the rest was irrelevant to the question posed.
I assume that the four hints mentioning pets you are refering to are:
The Swede keeps dogs as pets.
The person who smokes Pall Mall rears birds.
The man who smokes Blend lives next to the one who keeps cats.
The man who keeps the horse lives next to the man who smokes Dunhill.
You say you got the Nationality, Cigar, and Pet from this info. First of all the Pet is given, and for the rest, all you could know from those four hints, is:
He isn't Swede.
He doesn't smoke Pall Mall.
He doesn't live next to the Cat owner. and
He doesn't live next to the Dunhill smoker.
There is no way of knowing what the other possiblities are without the other hints. For example, you can't tell that a Dane is one of the possible nationalities without the Dane hint.
The question asks "who is the fish owner?" Based upon the setup of the question, my definition of 'identity' is, Nationality, House Color, Beverage, Cigar, and Pet.
Since you insist and its 2am here (and I'm really tired).
Here is what I figured out:
The swede has dogs.
The one who smokes pall mall has birds.
The one who smokes blend has cats.
The one who smokes dunhill has a horse.
That left the German which smokes prince.
Those are the only things I wrote on my paper. I don't doubt that there might've been some unconsious thinking behind the scenes, but that's all I wrote down and based my answer on.
Since you insist and its 2am here (and I'm really tired).
Here is what I figured out:
The swede has dogs.
The one who smokes pall mall has birds.
The one who smokes blend has cats.
The one who smokes dunhill has a horse.
That left the German which smokes prince.
Those are the only things I wrote on my paper. I don't doubt that there might've been some unconsious thinking behind the scenes, but that's all I wrote down and based my answer on.
Well, how do you know that German was a possible answer? The setup of the riddle does not tell this. The hints do.
And the Blend smoker is not the Cat owner, but lives next to the Cat owner. The Horse owner does not smoke Dunhill, but lives next to the Dunhill smoker.
Its a stupid puzzle. However I got it right - I got the stupid puzzle right. I didn't have to google it. I didn't have to read the answer. I put those facts on my paper and I got it right. Does it really matter to me? No. I thought it was kind of neat and fun. It WAS a fun little excercise, but you've had to make this into some sort of pissing match.
And I never said the setup told the answer. I said that I only wrote down 5 of the hints and from the question being "WHO" I figured it was the german.
Why do even care how I did it? I don't. Its just incomprehensible to me that you're caring so much.
you can generate the following table (although, the columns are not nessesarily in that order, which is only obtained from more date)
Code:
Nationality ? ? ? German Swede
Color ? ? ? ? ?
Beverage ? ? ? ? ?
Cigar Dunhill Blend Pall Mall Prince ?
Pet Cats Horse Birds Fish Dogs
I concede that it is pretty smart that you saw this. But I still stand that this is not a complete answer to the question. If I said all computers had the following attributes: name, make, case color, operating system. Now, what is the iMac? According to what I just defined a computer as, the iMac is made by apple, white, and runs MacOS.
Thanks for your concern about my bad riddle experience, ragingloogie, but my comments were tongue in cheek so there's really no need to feel sorry for me. Nor will I be bothered if, as I suspect will be the case, most here solve it in a snap.
By way of demonstration, please be aware that this comment
makes non-geniuses like me go like this because it is very silly. As there is no specialist kowledge required to solve Einstein's riddle (you don't need to understand the Theory of Relativity, for instance), it would have been no more difficult for someone in the late 19th century than it is for anyone today. See I have just saved you from repeating such nonsense in public and having people guffaw at you.
i wasnt feeling sorry, just giving a lil sympathy; whether it mean more or less the same... also, thanks for that awareness.. must have not been thinking when i wrote that.. thanks again
Comments
Originally posted by ragingloogie
hehe, must hjave been good.. but then again... ive never heard of it... guess its way before my time?
welll given your age it would have been a decade...
Originally posted by hardeeharhar
I have realized that there was a game that I played as a child that had the same, um, punchline...
Repressed memories and all...
You should have just kept your mouth shut. I was happy to simply acknowledge the fact you're really brainy. Now you've gone and taken the shine off it by admitting you had an advantage. Unless New also relied on repressed memories, I will assume until further notice that he is much brainier than you, billybob.
When you and Mr H were indulging in your little intellectual masturbation session above, I was thinking that assumptions are often required for riddle solving. But after being reminded of Petals Around the Rose, it's struck me that while Einstein's riddle requires at least one assumption, it was making assumptions that screwed me, and I suspect others, with Petals. It seems people fall into two camps with it - those who solve it relatively quickly and those who are stumped. Did you read the story about Bill Gates trying to solve it? Trés droll. I admit I gave up on Petals after about 15 minutes partly because I couldn't bear the idea it would take me as long or longer than Bill.
Thanks for your concern about my bad riddle experience, ragingloogie, but my comments were tongue in cheek so there's really no need to feel sorry for me. Nor will I be bothered if, as I suspect will be the case, most here solve it in a snap. I have long been convinced that while my fellow members may enjoy an above average level of intelligence and display formidable abilities when it comes to reason and logic, as far as understanding really useful stuff like human behaviour and interaction goes, they're completely useless and I'm way out in front. Hence, my illustrious position as one of only 2 cool AI members. It works well though. I have a bunch of genius dorks I can rely on when necessary and they have someone to explain to them how to buy milk without logging in as root.
By way of demonstration, please be aware that this comment
back in the day, it might have been a challenge then
makes non-geniuses like me go like this
Originally posted by Akac
Phew. Used a pen and a paper. Took me about 10 mins, but I was emailing and coding at the same time. I realized about halfway through that most of the hints are useless - only 5 of them had any bearing to the actual puzzle
Really, so you solved the problem using only five of the hints. Which five would those happen to be, and how are all four of the fish owner's other attributes revealed by them?
The Swede keeps dogs as pets.
The person who smokes Pall Mall rears birds.
The man who smokes Blend lives next to the one who keeps cats.
The man who keeps the horse lives next to the man who smokes Dunhill.
You say you got the Nationality, Cigar, and Pet from this info. First of all the Pet is given, and for the rest, all you could know from those four hints, is:
He isn't Swede.
He doesn't smoke Pall Mall.
He doesn't live next to the Cat owner. and
He doesn't live next to the Dunhill smoker.
There is no way of knowing what the other possiblities are without the other hints. For example, you can't tell that a Dane is one of the possible nationalities without the Dane hint.
The question asks "who is the fish owner?" Based upon the setup of the question, my definition of 'identity' is, Nationality, House Color, Beverage, Cigar, and Pet.
Here is what I figured out:
The swede has dogs.
The one who smokes pall mall has birds.
The one who smokes blend has cats.
The one who smokes dunhill has a horse.
That left the German which smokes prince.
Those are the only things I wrote on my paper. I don't doubt that there might've been some unconsious thinking behind the scenes, but that's all I wrote down and based my answer on.
Originally posted by Akac
Since you insist and its 2am here (and I'm really tired).
Here is what I figured out:
The swede has dogs.
The one who smokes pall mall has birds.
The one who smokes blend has cats.
The one who smokes dunhill has a horse.
That left the German which smokes prince.
Those are the only things I wrote on my paper. I don't doubt that there might've been some unconsious thinking behind the scenes, but that's all I wrote down and based my answer on.
Well, how do you know that German was a possible answer? The setup of the riddle does not tell this. The hints do.
And the Blend smoker is not the Cat owner, but lives next to the Cat owner. The Horse owner does not smoke Dunhill, but lives next to the Dunhill smoker.
And I never said the setup told the answer. I said that I only wrote down 5 of the hints and from the question being "WHO" I figured it was the german.
Why do even care how I did it? I don't. Its just incomprehensible to me that you're caring so much.
Using those four hints above, and:
The German smokes Prince,
you can generate the following table (although, the columns are not nessesarily in that order, which is only obtained from more date)
Nationality ? ? ? German Swede
Color ? ? ? ? ?
Beverage ? ? ? ? ?
Cigar Dunhill Blend Pall Mall Prince ?
Pet Cats Horse Birds Fish Dogs
I concede that it is pretty smart that you saw this. But I still stand that this is not a complete answer to the question. If I said all computers had the following attributes: name, make, case color, operating system. Now, what is the iMac? According to what I just defined a computer as, the iMac is made by apple, white, and runs MacOS.
Originally posted by crazychester
Thanks for your concern about my bad riddle experience, ragingloogie, but my comments were tongue in cheek so there's really no need to feel sorry for me. Nor will I be bothered if, as I suspect will be the case, most here solve it in a snap.
By way of demonstration, please be aware that this comment
makes non-geniuses like me go like this
i wasnt feeling sorry, just giving a lil sympathy; whether it mean more or less the same... also, thanks for that awareness.. must have not been thinking when i wrote that.. thanks again