Einstein's riddle

ragingloogieragingloogie
Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
- now, its obvious that the answer can be found on the web, however, how many of you can solve it w/out looking it up before you try to figure it out, and how fast can you do it??? i had an old friend do it in 20minutes... it took me 15minutes.... counting the coffee i was drinking while figuring it out. have fun



There are 5 houses in 5 different colors. In each house lives a person with a different nationality. The 5 owners drink a certain type of beverage, smoke a certain brand of cigar, and keep a certain pet. No owners have the same pet, smoke the same brand of cigar, or drink the same beverage.



The question is: Who owns the fish?



Hints:



The Brit lives in the red house.

The Swede keeps dogs as pets.

The Dane drinks tea.

The green house is on the left of the white house.

The green homeowner drinks coffee.

The person who smokes Pall Mall rears birds.

The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill.

The man living in the center house drinks milk.

The Norwegian lives in the first house.

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.

The owner who smokes Bluemaster drinks beer.

The German smokes prince.

The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.

The man who smokes Blend has a neighbor who drinks water.



Einstein wrote this riddle early during the 19th century. He said 98% of the world could not solve it. Its not hard, you just need to pay attention and be patient.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 100
    ijerryijerry Posts: 615member
    figured it out. It isn't bad once you write it out and step back a couple of times. Took about 15 minutes for me, once I was able to look at it.



    I don't want to spoil it for others that will try, but I would like to compare all of my answers with you and not just who owns the fish...PM me, or if nobody responds we can just post our answers here.



    8)
  • Reply 2 of 100
    johnqjohnq Posts: 2,763member
    I got very close but gave up after about 20 minutes.



    OmniGraffle helped a lot, as would have Excel had I thought to use it.



    I suck at these things though.
  • Reply 3 of 100
    groveratgroverat Posts: 10,872member
    What's really funny about this problem is that at first I was forcing myself to not allow an error in the trial and error part, so I ended up staring at the variables and trying to rearrange them on paper properly without ever saying, "Right, let's see what happens if I just given X person an X-colored house." Stupid me.



    I just used a pen and paper and it took me a while. The time seemed to go a lot faster after I realized that I could use a pencil instead of a pen and just erase my mistakes. HA!
  • Reply 4 of 100
    crazychestercrazychester Posts: 1,339member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by ragingloogie

    Einstein wrote this riddle early during the 19th century.



    So he did figure out a way round the old time travel paradox after all. I knew it! The old fox.
  • Reply 5 of 100
    groveratgroverat Posts: 10,872member
    Einstein was born in the 1870s.
  • Reply 6 of 100
    crazychestercrazychester Posts: 1,339member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by groverat

    Einstein was born in the 1870s.



    Oh so it's meant to mean early in his life during the 19th century not early in the 19th century. Then again it may mean he wrote it at 5 am oneday in 1892 I suppose......
  • Reply 7 of 100
    ragingloogieragingloogie Posts: 426member
    we all know that, but the site i copied the riddle from didnt know that



    http://www.naute.com/puzzles/puzzle13.phtml



    thats the site that i copied it from because i couldnt get the other site that iw anted to copy it from because of the schools stupid fire wall... anyways... i love my PB i was able to get asignal in class rooms that didnt have a wireless box on it



    anyways, have fun to furture people who like to try to figure it out



    also, i used microsoft excel to figure out that riddle, so if i made a mistake, i clicked on bakcspace and everything was at eye level so i wouldnt have to look up and down at the riddle and my piece of paper



    take care
  • Reply 8 of 100
    cosmonutcosmonut Posts: 4,872member
    So...was it the butler in the library with the candlestick?
  • Reply 9 of 100
    ragingloogieragingloogie Posts: 426member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by CosmoNut

    So...was it the butler in the library with the candlestick?



    um.. no.. and theres no butler, or library in the riddle.. even after re-reading it... if i may ask, where you get the butler, in the library w/ the candlestick?
  • Reply 10 of 100
    audiopollutionaudiopollution Posts: 3,226member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by ragingloogie

    um.. no.. and theres no butler, or library in the riddle.. even after re-reading it... if i may ask, where you get the butler, in the library w/ the candlestick?



    Get a Clue.



  • Reply 11 of 100
    ragingloogieragingloogie Posts: 426member
    i did... unless its about the brit, but who knows, i guess im getting a lil lost? but id ont remember and didnt see a butler and candlestick... battery on PB almost dead, about 2mins left.. catcha ya guys l8ir when i get to the imac... l8rs
  • Reply 12 of 100
    cosmonutcosmonut Posts: 4,872member
    Young grasshopper, you have much to learn. Then again, you may not even know the reference to "young grasshopper." \



    "Clue" is a board game and movie where the goal is to figure out who in the house committed a particular murder. In the same way you have to narrow clues down to Einstein's riddle through process of elimination and deduction, the same must be done in "Clue."



    I was making a funny...which was lost on some here.



    EDIT - I don't know which is worse: The fact that he/she didn't get it or that I actually took the time to explain it.
  • Reply 13 of 100
    johnqjohnq Posts: 2,763member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by CosmoNut

    EDIT - I don't know which is worse: The fact that he/she didn't get it or that I actually took the time to explain it.



    Or that I read both.



    And typed this.
  • Reply 14 of 100
    paulpaul Posts: 5,278member
    very cool. I wrote out the hints in excel to make them easy to follow and did the rest on paper. Once I had everything written out nicely it took about 5 minutes. I sent my final listing to ijerry. I won't post it publicly so others can figure it out.



    Thanks mr. loogie!
  • Reply 15 of 100
    johnqjohnq Posts: 2,763member
    i used OmniGraffle and was running arrowed lines to each attribute/object as best as I could. I knew it'd get insane, and it was, but it got me very very close.



    Excel is a cleaner way although less fun to move things around in.



    Pencil and paper I'm sure is best, with eraser



    Brain only? No way.
  • Reply 16 of 100
    ragingloogieragingloogie Posts: 426member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by CosmoNut

    Young grasshopper, you have much to learn. Then again, you may not even know the reference to "young grasshopper." \



    "Clue" is a board game and movie where the goal is to figure out who in the house committed a particular murder. In the same way you have to narrow clues down to Einstein's riddle through process of elimination and deduction, the same must be done in "Clue."



    I was making a funny...which was lost on some here.



    EDIT - I don't know which is worse: The fact that he/she didn't get it or that I actually took the time to explain it.



    ah, clue, the board game... damn, im stupid:-\\ my bad, im sorry.. didnt realize...
  • Reply 17 of 100
    ragingloogieragingloogie Posts: 426member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Paul

    very cool. I wrote out the hints in excel to make them easy to follow and did the rest on paper. Once I had everything written out nicely it took about 5 minutes. I sent my final listing to ijerry. I won't post it publicly so others can figure it out.



    Thanks mr. loogie!



    Nice have fun
  • Reply 18 of 100
    wgauvinwgauvin Posts: 100member
    I shouldn't do things like this at work, as I get in to a rhythm and then BAM someone wants something and I have to take my mind off it. However, I did work it out. Guess those years of my mum buying me logic problem books helped
  • Reply 19 of 100
    newnew Posts: 3,244member
    ahh...! another ten minutes spent on getting paid while NOT doing my boring job... Very pleasing. Wonder why there are so many scandinavians in the puzzle?



    Umm ... and *spoiler*:









    Dunnhill isn't very popular here....
  • Reply 20 of 100
    imac davidimac david Posts: 286member
    Clue?



    Of what abomination are you speaking of?



    The name is Cluedo.





    Possible spoiler:



    And who owns the fish? Well, clearly, the man who lives a door away from a beer drinker, who wouldn't be seen dead smoking Blend and who's on first name terms with a birdkeeper.
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