Mind Exercise

My apologies if this has been done before. I’d check the search engine, but I wouldn’t know what keyword to enter.

My sister sent this to me tonite, but without the solution. I’m trying to solve it myself, but I will post the solution after a couple of days.

For those of you who like to exercise your minds:

This is a quiz that was written by Einsetein. 85% of the population does
not possess the logical thinking ability to solve it. Are you among the
15%?

Facts:

  1. There are 5 houses of 5 different colors arranged in a straight row.

  2. Within each house lives a different owner, all of a different
    nationality.

  3. Each of the 5 owners drinks a different beverage, smoke a different
    brand of cigar, and keeps a different type of pet.

  4. You are facing the row of houses and read left to right.

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 on the left of the white house.
  5. The green house owner drinks coffee.
  6. The owner who smokes Pall Mall, keeps birds.
  7. The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill.
  8. The owner living in the house right in the middle drinks milk.
  9. The Norwegian lives in the first house.
  10. The owner who smokes Blend lives next to the one who keeps cats.
  11. The owner who keeps horses lives next to the one who smokes Dunhill.
  12. The owner 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 Blend has a neighbor who drinks water.

The Question: Who has fish for pets?


The most rewarding part was when I got my money!
-Dr. Nick Riviera

Had seen it before, but long ago forgot the answer. Solved it again.

The answer is:

HRT,SMISO

(In order not to spoil it for the would-be-solvers, I transposed all of the characters one keyspace to the right, and added some dummy characters so that length wouldn’t indicate it. Ain’t I a nice guy?)


JMCJ

This is not a sig.

Since my fiancee prompted us to get an aquarium, and some of her ancestors were German, I’d say it’s the German.

I just finished solving it… or at least I think I did. I’ll post later, in the event others want to give it a try.


The most rewarding part was when I got my money!
-Dr. Nick Riviera

Who’s “Einsetein”?

Don’t ask me… I just cut and paste!


The most rewarding part was when I got my money!
-Dr. Nick Riviera

I hate it when people give the answer without explaining WHY it’s the answer. Knowing it’s the German isn’t interesting; it’s knowing how you get that answer. If you screwed up somewhere while trying the puzzle, and can’t find where, it’s especially frustrating. So here is the explanation. I’m not spoiling anything, because there’s no secret trick to give away here; this explanation will only make sense if you follow it along, anyway, and that is easily avoided.

Make five rows and head them “Nationality”, “Pet”, “Drink”, “Smoke”, and “Color”. Now fill in the chart as follows.
i) From 9, the Norwegian is in the first house.
ii)From 14, the second house is blue.
iii) From 4, the green and white houses are either third and fourth or fourth and fifth.
iv) From 1 and iii, the Norwegian lives in the yellow house.
v) From 7, the Norwegian smokes Dunhill.
vi) From 11, the second house holds horses.
vii) From 5, the green house serves coffee.
viii) By elimination via 3,8, and 12, the Norwegian drinks water.
ix) From iii and 8, the middle house serves milk.
x) By elimination, the third house is red (and from iii the green and white houses are fourth and fifth).
xi) By 1, the middle house contains the Brit.
xii) By 15, the second house smokes Blend.
xiii) By 12, the fifth house smokes Blue Master and serves beer.
xiv) By 3, the Dane is in the second house and serves tea.
xv) By 13, the German is in the fourth house and smokes Prince.
xvi) By 2, the Swede is in the fifth house and keeps dogs.
xvii) By 6, the Brit smokes Pall Mall and keeps birds.
xviii) By 10, the Norwegian keeps cats.

By elimination, if anyone keeps fish, it’s the German, in the green, fourth house, drinking coffee and smoking Princes and murdering Professor Plum in his library with the candlestick.

Actually, for a logic problem, this is pretty sorry. You (as the problem solver) have to make the assumption that someone has fish as pets…but they don’t actually tell you that fish are one of the pets that are owned. I always hated those types of problems. If you expect me to sit down and solve it, then you need to be sure and word it clearly.

I’d say “fish” really stands for “all pets excluding cats, horses, birds and dogs” in this case.

Anyway, I managed to solve it in about 10 minutes. Is that any good? I mean, just stating that I’m in the top 15% of all smart people just isn’t enough for me :wink:

Coldfire


"You know how complex women are"

  • Neil Peart, Rush (1993)

This chesnut has been around for a long time.

It looks like a tough problem, but it’s really quite simple if you approach it logically.

There are many variations of this, but once you’ve solved a couple it’s not much of a challenge anymore.

Great fun if you haven’t seen it before, though.


I don’t have to do drugs to mess up my head. I went to Catholic school.

Coldfire–

Ya, I know what they meant, but I’m of the opinion, that a logic problem should be logical. And not require the solver to make assumptions. Of course I used to get irritated in my Algebra class doing word problems too.

Teacher:“In our School, there are 173 students total, of those, 86 are taking Biology and Physics in the first semester, and 64 are taking Biology and Geology in the second semester. How many total student are taking Biology?”

Me:“That problem can’t be answered with the information given”

Teacher:"Sure it can let x=students taking Biology
(86 - x)+(69-x)=173
Then solve for x

Me:"Nooooo…the problem doesn’t state that they are taking either one or the other of the two science classes per semester, it says they are taking both of them.
Teacher :(with long suffering sigh) “Just solve for x Kris”

(My fiance just had a problem similar to this while studying for one of her teaching exams…I’m still irritated about it)

Well Atrael, you’re right. In a very anal sort of way :wink:


Coldfire


"You know how complex women are"

  • Neil Peart, Rush (1993)

I solved it in under 30 seconds. Here’s how.

-I checked all the descriptions for pets mentioned. If there were 5 different kinds of pets and none of them were fish, the answer would have been “no one”. However, there are only 4 different types of pets, and nothing to indicate that fish must be the fifth one. Therefore, the answer is clearly “not enough information”.

Ladies and gentlemen, that is logic. Don’t make assumptions. Only use the information you are given. A good logic puzzle always has all the information that is necessary to solve it.

Gee, I just reread what I wrote. Just because I’m feeling grumpy today doesn’t mean I should take it out here. Maybe if I add a smilie…

:smiley:

There. All better.

It feels good to be in the 15%. Yeah, I did it exactly how APB explained it. I feel so special that I’ll go to sleep to commend myself…yeah.


“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.”
-H.P. Lovecraft, “The Call of Cthulhu”

i assume everyone else who did the puzzle found it no more difficult than your average logic puzzle.

so do you suppose Mr. EinsEtein meant that 15% would answer like MrKnowItAll, thus giving the only truly logical answer?

what is essential is invisible to the eye -the fox

Well, I thought it was fun, and I thank Squee for posting it. :slight_smile:

(No doubt I’d be cursing him if I hadn’t figured it out, but I did, so I’m not.)


Jodi

Fiat Justitia

Ha! It’s that coffee-drinking, Prince-smoking, green-house-living, fish-keeping Kraut!

(And it only took me 9 minutes, Coldfire)


The IQ of a group is equal to the IQ of the dumbest member divided by the number of people in the group.

Oooooo! A logic puzzle! I love these. I’ll have to get started right on it :slight_smile:


When are you going to realize being normal isn’t necessarily a good thing?

Grumblemumble I hate trick logic puzzles.

There are only four types of pets mentioned. You can’t possibly get any answers but not enough info. I do these all the time and even if the clue is obscure, there are always the correct amount of pets or cigarettes or what to match the number of people mentioned in the introduction portion.


When are you going to realize being normal isn’t necessarily a good thing?