Einstein's Riddle

[BatterY]

Code: Select all

ALBERT EINSTEIN'S RIDDLE

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.

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 next to, and 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.

There it is. I tried to solve it for an hour but then my brain fucked up...
(try to solve it without pen and paper)

[F |Madness| U]

I'm pretty sure that he didn't intend people to work it out without using a pen and paper..

[Infinite]

I got an answer, so I'll go check in a minute. Did it in my head, this should be fun


SPOILER: My answer was... The German


EDIT:

The Answer:

http://www.manbottle.com/trivia/einstei ... dle_answer

I was right.

[[SoE]_Zaitsev]

I actually remember solving that when I was 8-10 (honestly). I just laid all the facts down on a piece of paper with diagrams of the houses It worked, and it took me about 15minutes.

True, but I guess it's a little bit of cheating though

[Drofder2004]

Done, took a little longer than expected, but watching Man Utd at the same time was never going to be record setting pace.
An orderly table + a "house" diagram (row of 5 squares) to work out the order of houses.

Oh, and Einstein never said "solve it without paper"... and doing this without paper would require a mind similar to that of a Chess Master remembering many combinations and events...

[matt101harris]

The person that owns the fish is..... King Neptune. Because he owns all the fish in the world... FACT!

[Innkeeper]

Took me about ten minutes, had to chart everything out...

its the german

[Hoogie]

doing this without paper would require a mind similar to that of a Chess Master remembering many combinations and events...

I guess that's the whole point. 98% shouldn't be able to solve this. Every idiot can solve this by writing everything down.

Doing this without a piece of paper will probably get you at a 2% success rate.

[Drofder2004]

doing this without paper would require a mind similar to that of a Chess Master remembering many combinations and events...

I guess that's the whole point. 98% shouldn't be able to solve this. Every idiot can solve this by writing everything down.

Doing this without a piece of paper will probably get you at a 2% success rate.

So, you are honestly going to presume that an estimated 80 million adults can solve this puzzle in their head?
There is absolutely no logically way that 2% of people can solve this in their head, when it is taking the majority of people using pen and paper several minutes.

Like I said, to be able to plan and remember every potential and impossible route with such accuracy without writing it down would take an impressive amount of brain power. 2% is way too high an estimate, 0.02% is a more believable amount.

Simple facts are:
1. We cannot even prove Einstein wrote this riddle.
2. A prediction of population solving ability is stupid
3. No where in any of the riddles does it say "no pen/paper" (or chalkboard -.-)

[Pedsdude]

It's a riddle for autistic people.

[[SoE]_Zaitsev]

I agree with Drofder. 2% is too much I think.

[Drofder2004]

20% tbh...1 in 5 chance.

The riddle is to solve the puzzle, not to guess it.
I'm pretty sure Einstein (presuming it was him) would have accepted German as an answer if you simply said it without working.

[waywaaaard]

Solved this a 2 years ago using PROLOG, just for testing PROLOG

couldn't find my own implementation that's why I post here wiki one:

Code: Select all

erstes(E,[E|_]).
    mittleres(M,[_,_,M,_,_]).
 
    links(A,B,[A|[B|_]]).
    links(A,B,[_|R]) :- links(A,B,R).
 
    neben(A,B,L) :- links(A,B,L);links(B,A,L).
Lösungsprädikat:
    run :-
        X = [_,_,_,_,_],                                /* Es gibt (nebeneinander) 5 (noch unbekannte) Häuser */
        member([rot,brite,_,_,_],X),                    /* Der Brite lebt im roten Haus */
        member([_,schwede,_,_,hund],X),                 /* Der Schwede hält einen Hund */
        member([_,daene,tee,_,_],X),                    /* Der Däne trinkt gern Tee */
        links([gruen,_,_,_,_],[weiss,_,_,_,_],X),       /* Das grüne Haus steht links vom weißen Haus */
        member([gruen,_,kaffee,_,_],X),                 /* Der Besitzer des grünen Hauses trinkt Kaffee */
        member([_,_,_,pallmall,vogel],X),               /* Die Person, die Pall Mall raucht, hält einen Vogel */
        mittleres([_,_,milch,_,_],X),                   /* Der Mann, der im mittleren Haus wohnt, trinkt Milch */
        member([gelb,_,_,dunhill,_],X),                 /* Der Besitzer des gelben Hauses raucht Dunhill */
        erstes([_,norweger,_,_,_],X),                   /* Der Norweger wohnt im 1. Haus */
        neben([_,_,_,marlboro,_],[_,_,_,_,katze],X),    /* Der Marlboro-Raucher wohnt neben dem, der eine Katze hält */
        neben([_,_,_,_,pferd],[_,_,_,dunhill,_],X),     /* Der Mann, der ein Pferd hält, wohnt neben dem, der Dunhill raucht */
        member([_,_,bier,winfield,_],X),                /* Der Winfield-Raucher trinkt gern Bier */
        neben([_,norweger,_,_,_],[blau,_,_,_,_],X),     /* Der Norweger wohnt neben dem blauen Haus */
        member([_,deutsche,_,rothmans,_],X),            /* Der Deutsche raucht Rothmans */
        neben([_,_,_,marlboro,_],[_,_,wasser,_,_],X),   /* Der Marlboro-Raucher hat einen Nachbarn, der Wasser trinkt */
        member([_,N,_,_,fisch],X),                      /* Der mit der Nationalität N hat einen Fisch */
        write(X),nl,                                    /* Ausgabe aller Häuser */
        write('Der '),write(N),write(' hat einen Fisch als Haustier.'),nl.   /* Antwort auf die Frage */

[BatterY]

Like I said, to be able to plan and remember every potential and impossible route with such accuracy without writing it down would take an impressive amount of brain power. 2% is way too high an estimate, 0.02% is a more believable amount.

2% of the world's population back then, perhaps?

[Drofder2004]

Like I said, to be able to plan and remember every potential and impossible route with such accuracy without writing it down would take an impressive amount of brain power. 2% is way too high an estimate, 0.02% is a more believable amount.

2% of the world's population back then, perhaps?

Population of 1900 = ~1.7 billion
2% = 34,000,000

So, one hundred years ago, in the times of the Great War and post-Victorian era, a day and age where children spent more time working than learning, you honestly expect a 2% turn around in intelligence?

As population increase along side technological advances, it would be safe to assume intelligence increases aswell.
Although there is always an exception >.>