coudal.com— This brainteaser, reportedly written by Einstein is difficult and Einstein said that 98% of the people in the world could not figure it out. Which percentage are you in?
Aug 4, 2005View in Crawl 4
"Note: We were tempted to include the phrase "show your work" with the rules for entry but then we figured that any dork who would Google a puzzle like this in order to win would have to live with self-loathing and guilt for the rest of their life and that would far outweigh the value of the prize package. Yes, we are in fact talking to you Nick M."ARGHHHH!!! it knows my name!
I had some fun proving to myself I could do this. And to the people who said they could do it in like 1 minute without paper, yeah...lies! Would take longer than a minute to read all the hints and make sense of what is going on.
About 10 min using excel including the time it took to input all the options to deduct. The answer about not knowing who, if anyone owns a fish is cheesy, that answer is the lazy mans answer. I agree with the Green German answer. The guy with 2 answers, you had a lot of wrong things happening in your second solution. I hope there are more of these things that make you think.
NORWEGIAN SOLUTIONHouse 1: Dane, Norwegian, yellow, tea, dunhills, walleyeHouse 2: blue, beer, bluemasters, horsesHouse 3: Brit, red, milk, pall malls, birdsHouse 4: swede, green, coffee, blends, dogsHouse 5: German, white, water, princes, cats(house 1 is furthest left, house 5 is furthest right)This is the solution I meant to write before (i had dogs in house 5 instead of cats). I've checked the rules several times for this arrangement, and it seems to satisfy them all for the way this riddle was written at <a class="user" href="http://www.coudal.com/thefish.php">http://www.coudal.com/thefish.php</a>1. The Brit lives in the 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 green house owner drinks coffee.6. The person who smokes Pall Malls keeps birds.7. The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhills.8. The man living in the house right in the center drinks milk.9. The man who smokes Blends lives next to the one who keeps cats.10. The Norwegian lives in the first house.11. The man who keeps horses lives next to the one who smokes Dunhills.12. The owner who smokes Bluemasters drinks beer.13. The German smokes Princes.14. The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.15. The man who smokes Blends has a neighbor who drinks water.Can anyone find any reason that this solution does not work?
Yeah -- you have the Dane and the Norweigen living in the same house. The riddle (as written at <a class="user" href="http://www.coudal.com/thefish.php)">http://www.coudal.com/thefish.php)</a> says "In each house lives a person with a different nationality," so the Dane and the Norweigan cannot live in the same house. If you move the Dane to house 2, then the Dane no longer drinks tea -- which breaks rule #3. If you move the Norweigan to house 2, he no longer lives in the first house, which breaks rule #10.Sorry...there is only one answer.
And just for clarification, incase you try to tell me that 2 people of different nationalities can live in the same house, remember, the riddle said, "The five owners drink a different drink, smoke a different brand of cigar and keep a different pet." Your Norweigan solution has the Norweigan and the Dane drinking the same drink, smoking the same cigar and keeping the same pet -- this also breaks the rules of the riddle.
To everyone that thinks that more than 2% of the people in the world could solve this puzzle I think you're forgetting a couple of major things:1.) only a small percentage of the worlds population are educated to a level where they have encountered algebra2.) different people speak different languages and so their brains will follow different logical processes attuned to the nuances of the structure of their own languages.Basically, Einstein was an educated European whose work centred on a very technical field. If you've been brought up in an area where many people are educated to High School level and above, then more than 2% of those you know will be able to solve the problem.Bare in mind that the majority of the world have spent their teenage years trying to earn enough money to live and have not had the luxury of being able to spend much of their time tuning their brains to the particular logic of this sort of abstraction.In future don't always read the phrase "x% of the world" or "x fraction of people" and so on to mean "x% of the educated class of American society". I would have thought that many of the people who were smart enough to solve this problem would also be smart enough to avoid this sort of bias.The other thing is- while it doesn't matter to the solution if you take "to the left" to mean directly to the left or not, it does affect the complexity of the proof. Don't forget to take this into account also.
shade73Aug 4, 2005
it was the brit in the pink house with the candlestick... oh wait... wrong puzzle
nickmAug 4, 2005
"Note: We were tempted to include the phrase "show your work" with the rules for entry but then we figured that any dork who would Google a puzzle like this in order to win would have to live with self-loathing and guilt for the rest of their life and that would far outweigh the value of the prize package. Yes, we are in fact talking to you Nick M."ARGHHHH!!! it knows my name!
Closed AccountAug 4, 2005
It's Einstein ... of course the German would have the fish.
mexrockerAug 4, 2005
I got it! I'm proud... a good 10-15 min, i had mized up two of the nationalities by mistake... pretty fun
xtmno3Aug 5, 2005
I had some fun proving to myself I could do this. And to the people who said they could do it in like 1 minute without paper, yeah...lies! Would take longer than a minute to read all the hints and make sense of what is going on.
park708Aug 6, 2005
I meant rule 4, not 10
becksAug 8, 2005
About 10 min using excel including the time it took to input all the options to deduct. The answer about not knowing who, if anyone owns a fish is cheesy, that answer is the lazy mans answer. I agree with the Green German answer. The guy with 2 answers, you had a lot of wrong things happening in your second solution. I hope there are more of these things that make you think.
park708Aug 9, 2005
NORWEGIAN SOLUTIONHouse 1: Dane, Norwegian, yellow, tea, dunhills, walleyeHouse 2: blue, beer, bluemasters, horsesHouse 3: Brit, red, milk, pall malls, birdsHouse 4: swede, green, coffee, blends, dogsHouse 5: German, white, water, princes, cats(house 1 is furthest left, house 5 is furthest right)This is the solution I meant to write before (i had dogs in house 5 instead of cats). I've checked the rules several times for this arrangement, and it seems to satisfy them all for the way this riddle was written at <a class="user" href="http://www.coudal.com/thefish.php">http://www.coudal.com/thefish.php</a>1. The Brit lives in the 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 green house owner drinks coffee.6. The person who smokes Pall Malls keeps birds.7. The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhills.8. The man living in the house right in the center drinks milk.9. The man who smokes Blends lives next to the one who keeps cats.10. The Norwegian lives in the first house.11. The man who keeps horses lives next to the one who smokes Dunhills.12. The owner who smokes Bluemasters drinks beer.13. The German smokes Princes.14. The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.15. The man who smokes Blends has a neighbor who drinks water.Can anyone find any reason that this solution does not work?
darthjayAug 9, 2005
Yeah -- you have the Dane and the Norweigen living in the same house. The riddle (as written at <a class="user" href="http://www.coudal.com/thefish.php)">http://www.coudal.com/thefish.php)</a> says "In each house lives a person with a different nationality," so the Dane and the Norweigan cannot live in the same house. If you move the Dane to house 2, then the Dane no longer drinks tea -- which breaks rule #3. If you move the Norweigan to house 2, he no longer lives in the first house, which breaks rule #10.Sorry...there is only one answer.
darthjayAug 9, 2005
And just for clarification, incase you try to tell me that 2 people of different nationalities can live in the same house, remember, the riddle said, "The five owners drink a different drink, smoke a different brand of cigar and keep a different pet." Your Norweigan solution has the Norweigan and the Dane drinking the same drink, smoking the same cigar and keeping the same pet -- this also breaks the rules of the riddle.
nightwatcherAug 11, 2005
To everyone that thinks that more than 2% of the people in the world could solve this puzzle I think you're forgetting a couple of major things:1.) only a small percentage of the worlds population are educated to a level where they have encountered algebra2.) different people speak different languages and so their brains will follow different logical processes attuned to the nuances of the structure of their own languages.Basically, Einstein was an educated European whose work centred on a very technical field. If you've been brought up in an area where many people are educated to High School level and above, then more than 2% of those you know will be able to solve the problem.Bare in mind that the majority of the world have spent their teenage years trying to earn enough money to live and have not had the luxury of being able to spend much of their time tuning their brains to the particular logic of this sort of abstraction.In future don't always read the phrase "x% of the world" or "x fraction of people" and so on to mean "x% of the educated class of American society". I would have thought that many of the people who were smart enough to solve this problem would also be smart enough to avoid this sort of bias.The other thing is- while it doesn't matter to the solution if you take "to the left" to mean directly to the left or not, it does affect the complexity of the proof. Don't forget to take this into account also.