Einstein's Puzzle (Warning: Nerdy)

December 18, 2007 - 2:33am — Brandon

Someone sent me a URL with this puzzle. It's attributed to Einstein, who claimed that only 2% of the population could solve it. I seriously doubt that Einstein had anything to do with it, and I solved it so it can't be that hard! I tried to look into the history, but Wikipedia also attributes it to Einstein - oh well.

It took me about 35mins, so give it a go and drop me a message if you beat my time! :D

Background:
There are 5 houses in a row, each with a different color. Their owners, each with a unique heritage, drinks a certain type of beverage, smokes a certain brand of cigarette, and keep a certain variety of pet. None of the owners have the same pet, smoke the same brand of cigarette or drink the same beverage.

[The clues from the 1962 version use different ethnicities/brand names/drinks/pets but it makes no difference to the puzzle itself.]

Clues:
* The Brit lives in the red house.
* The Swede keeps dogs as pets.
* The Dane drinks tea.
* The green house is just to the left of the white house.
* The green house's owner drinks coffee.
* The person who smokes Pall Malls raises 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 Blends lives next to the one who keeps cats.
* The man who keeps a horse lives next to the man who smokes Dunhill.
* The owner who smokes Bluemasters also drinks beer.
* The German smokes Prince.
* The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
* The man who smokes Blends has a neighbor who drinks water.

Question:
Who owns the fish?

Hint: There's really no trick to this. I think figuring out the ORDER of the houses first is easiest, but you need to look at all the aspects simultaneously.

My solution is attached. The green smiley is the answer. If you don't really know how to start, take a quick look at how I set it up and it'll give you a good idea how to do it. Remember once you know a fact, you can cancel out all other possibilities in the same row & column because each person only has 1 house, one pet, one drink, etc. etc.

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Comments

November 1, 2008 - 4:00pm — Visitor (not verified)

Fun

Fun

October 17, 2008 - 12:38pm — Visitor (not verified)

The German keeps the fifth

The German keeps the fifth pet. However, it never says anything about the fifth pet being a fish, except in the question. The fifth pet could be anything except a horse, a dog, a bird, or a cat. There is no specification that the fifth pet, or the German's pet, has to be a fish.

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