-- Posted by Undivided at 8:51 am on Feb. 16, 2008 Apparently Albert Einstein devised this puzzle early during the 19th century and said that 98% of the world's population would not be able to solve it.  I tried it out the other day and managed it in roughly an hour and a half and didn't find it very difficult at all... 1. In a street there are five houses, painted five different colors. 2. In each house lives a person of different nationality. 3. These five homeowners each drink a different kind of beverage, smoke a different brand of cigar and keep a different pet. Clues: 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 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 center 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. So, who owns the fish? -- Posted by HijackTheBride at 8:53 am on Feb. 16, 2008 I have done this before. On here i believe, can't remember the answer though. I shall have a think about it. -- Posted by HijackTheBride at 8:55 am on Feb. 16, 2008 I have this, plus a table of answers in my document. The German owns the fish -- Posted by meghank91 at 8:56 am on Feb. 16, 2008 I did this in my algebra class last year. I'm pretty sure it was the German. -- Posted by okumsup at 9:41 am on Feb. 16, 2008 No doubt ze German owns ze fish. It has been proven. Ja. -- Posted by Ryan Potter at 12:48 pm on Feb. 17, 2008 Yeah, it's the German guy.  I figured it out in like 6th grade... -- Posted by ForeignFishes at 4:13 pm on Feb. 17, 2008 We used to do a bunch of puzzles like this with matrices in the Gifted & Talented class in middle school. I loved them. I kicked ass at them. We did this one then too. It's the German. -- Posted by norock at 5:10 pm on Feb. 17, 2008 Quote: from Ryan Potter at 3:48 pm on Feb. 17, 2008 Yeah, it's the German guy.  I figured it out in like 6th grade... X2 lol i was given this problem in fourth grade lol -- Posted by Blackadder at 8:08 pm on Feb. 19, 2008 all wrong awnsers so far. As a certified LiveWire Intellectual you are indubitably capable of composing a more verbose post! -- Posted by Graustein at 12:37 am on Feb. 20, 2008 I'm not even gonna attempt that. I fail at these kinds of puzzles. They're WAY too complex for my simple mind -- Posted by norock at 9:48 am on Feb. 20, 2008 Quote: from Blackadder at 11:08 pm on Feb. 19, 2008 all wrong awnsers so far.       As a certified LiveWire Intellectual you are indubitably capable of composing a more verbose post! no, its the german. -- Posted by az123 at 10:49 am on Feb. 20, 2008 I got the german but logically it SHOULD be the norwigien since norwigiens are renound for eating, catching and keeping fish. But on this puzzle I got the german -- Posted by Blackadder at 6:34 am on Feb. 21, 2008 Quote: from norock at 5:48 pm on Feb. 20, 2008 Quote: from Blackadder at 11:08 pm on Feb. 19, 2008 all wrong awnsers so far.      As a certified LiveWire Intellectual you are indubitably capable of composing a more verbose post! no, its the german. nope...see my topic -- Posted by norock at 6:36 am on Feb. 22, 2008 no, you are wrong lol its the german god damn verbose -- Posted by Blackadder at 6:45 am on Feb. 22, 2008 Quote: from norock at 2:36 pm on Feb. 22, 2008 no, you are wrong lol its the german god damn verbose No, I'm right... 98% of people get it wrong because 80% don't bother, and the other 18% are people who make a fundemental error, by thinking its the german.   -- Posted by norock at 7:07 am on Feb. 22, 2008 no, one needn't think, one need only solve the problem logically. are you serious? -- Posted by Blackadder at 7:26 am on Feb. 22, 2008 Quote: from norock at 3:07 pm on Feb. 22, 2008 no, one needn't think, one need only solve the problem logically. are you serious? how different would your awnser be if the question was "who owns the crododile" instead of "who owns the fish" there you are, thats a big clue to the true awnser. -- Posted by norock at 7:33 am on Feb. 22, 2008 it would be no different, as the fish is not included in the criteria, and is left to be an unknown, you could replace fish with ANY animal and it would still follow. the proof is a matter of EXCLUSION rather than inclusion. Have you tried to solve it? I solved it in elementary school and just did it again in like 15 minutes before [disregarding any urge i had to make assumptions based on my prior knowledge]. by the way, i messaged you about one of your other topics -- Posted by Blackadder at 7:49 am on Feb. 22, 2008 if your awnser would not change, then how can it be known the germans does in fact own the fish? -- Posted by norock at 8:05 am on Feb. 22, 2008 Of course, it could be ANYTHING that the german owns.   Sure, one must have more information about the criteria in order to be SURE the german owns the fish, but we are sure of two things: 1) the german does not own the other 4 animals 2) the question states that there are 5 houses, 5 men, 5 colors, 5 drinks, 5 smokes, and 5 animals [more exclusively, they all own different types of animals. the correct answer would have to be something like: Given the fact that we are not sure whether or not the five animals that the five men own are, in fact, a horse, a bird, a cat, a dog, and a fish [since fish is not implicitly stated in the criteria] we can only assume that because of the nature of the question "Who owns the fish?", that the German --owning none of the other animals, must then own the fish. however, it is stated that there are 5 animals, 4 which are accounted for in the criteria, leaving one to be unknown. the question asks who owns the fish, so one can logically assume that the question would not be asked if the fish were not --in fact-- the fifth and final animal. ^ that would be my answer if i were given this question on an exam or if i were asked it by a professor or other learned colleague. -- Posted by bourney at 7:39 am on Feb. 23, 2008 thats an urban legend that he believed that 98% of the worlds population couldnt solve it. All you have to do is work it out logically, maybe draw a table and put all the information in and work it out from there. -- Posted by Bobman21 at 11:20 pm on Feb. 23, 2008 It's POSSIBLE that there's another solution to the problem, but not likely. My solution has it as the German... 1st House: Norweigan, Yellow, Water, Dunhill, Cats 2nd House: Dane, Blue, Tea, Blends, Horses 3rd House: Brit, Red, Milk, Pall Mall, Birds 4th House: German, Green, Coffee, Prince, Fish 5th House: Swede, White, Beer, Blue Master, Dogs fits the criteria, anyway