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Don't know if it's ever been brought up here before, but I discovered this just before and spent about 30/40 minutes trying to figure it out.
It's a riddle that Einstein wrote in the early 19th century, and apparently he said that 98% of people couldn't solve it.
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.
THE 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.
It took me a little while, but I managed to work it out Let's see if Dakka can get it...
EDIT: Put the riddle itself in quote tags for clarity
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2012/05/21 21:38:35
We tried this in my further maths class a few months ago and in the 2 hour lesson pretty much the entire class (of 23) got it independently, the whole "only 98% of people can ever solve it" is a bit of an exaggeration.
Prestor Jon wrote: Because children don't have any legal rights until they're adults. A minor is the responsiblity of the parent and has no legal rights except through his/her legal guardian or parent.
Corpsesarefun wrote:We tried this in my further maths class a few months ago and in the 2 hour lesson pretty much the entire class (of 23) got it independently, the whole "only 98% of people can ever solve it" is a bit of an exaggeration.
I got it in about 40 minutes.
Yeah, I figured as much, it's not difficult, it just takes a bit of time... Still, it was a fun distraction for a while
I've already solved this riddle once, i'm not doing it again of my own free will
Automatically Appended Next Post: *sigh* Gave in and done in 14 minutes (allowed time to go over answer and check it was correct, which is why it hasn't been exactly 14mins since my last post).
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2012/05/21 23:08:10
Mandorallen turned back toward the insolently sneering baron. 'My Lord,' The great knight said distantly, 'I find thy face apelike and thy form misshapen. Thy beard, moreover, is an offence against decency, resembling more closely the scabrous fur which doth decorate the hinder portion of a mongrel dog than a proper adornment for a human face. Is it possibly that thy mother, seized by some wild lechery, did dally at some time past with a randy goat?' - Mimbrate Knight Protector Mandorallen.
Excerpt from "Seeress of Kell", Book Five of The Malloreon series by David Eddings.
"You need not fear us, unless you are a dark heart, a vile one who preys on the innocent; I promise, you can’t hide forever in the empty darkness, for we will hunt you down like the animals you are, and pull you into the very bowels of hell." Iron - Within Temptation
Corpsesarefun wrote: in the 2 hour lesson pretty much the entire class (of 23) got it independently, the whole "only 98% of people can ever solve it" is a bit of an exaggeration.
It might well have been true 50 years ago. It might still be close to that, globally.
The old meta is dead and the new meta struggles to be born. Now is the time of munchkins.
A common exercise in logical (e.g. Prolog)/ai programming is to write a program that solves this.
Needless to say it was more frustrating to write a program than to solve it by hand. As a result, I know conclude that regardless of the actual question posed, all of them are no longer thirsty and have a pet to keep them company while they slowly poison themselves with nicotine
And that is why you hear people yelling FOR THE EMPEROR rather than FOR LOGICAL AND QUANTIFIABLE BASED DECISIONS FOR THE BETTERMENT OF THE MAJORITY!
Phototoxin wrote:Kids go in , they waste tonnes of money on marnus calgar and his landraider, the slaneshi-like GW revel at this lust and short term profit margin pleasure. Meanwhile father time and cunning lord tzeentch whisper 'our games are better AND cheaper' and then players leave for mantic and warmahordes.
daveNYC wrote:The Craftworld guys, who are such stick-in-the-muds that they manage to make the Ultramarines look like an Ibiza nightclub that spiked its Red Bull with LSD.
Yeah, this is basically the sort of stuff you see on the LSAT. Like a lot of things on the internet, it gets a fake background and a hyperbolic claim like "98% of people can't figure it out."
Therefore, when a reasonably intelligent person solves it, they feel very smart.
By the way, Einstein wasn't even alive in the early 19th century!
Polonius wrote:Yeah, this is basically the sort of stuff you see on the LSAT. Like a lot of things on the internet, it gets a fake background and a hyperbolic claim like "98% of people can't figure it out."
Therefore, when a reasonably intelligent person solves it, they feel very smart.
By the way, Einstein wasn't even alive in the early 19th century!
Except that it was around before the internet and this problem involving nationalities, pets, cigars, drinks and houses was the first of it's kind. Whether it was Carrol or Einstein this is the earliest riddle of it's type that has been found.
Yeah, I pretty much just pasted it verbatim from where I found it, the wiki article linked above seems to disprove that Einstein had anything to do with it.
Polonius wrote:Yeah, this is basically the sort of stuff you see on the LSAT. Like a lot of things on the internet, it gets a fake background and a hyperbolic claim like "98% of people can't figure it out."
Therefore, when a reasonably intelligent person solves it, they feel very smart.
By the way, Einstein wasn't even alive in the early 19th century!
Except that it was around before the internet and this problem involving nationalities, pets, cigars, drinks and houses was the first of it's kind. Whether it was Carrol or Einstein this is the earliest riddle of it's type that has been found.
Yeah, that's my point. It's been around for a while, and has a relatively intersting story.
The internet just made up what it felt was a more interesting story and gave it a stupid hook.
Oh. He's the one who has the fish, which was the original question. Per my semi-legible notes, I have:
Spoiler:
Yellow House, Norwegian, Dunhills, Water, Cats
Blue House, Dane, Blends, Tea, Horses
Red House, Brit, Pall Mall, Milk, Birds
Green House, as above
White House, Swede, Blue Master, Beer, Dogs
Let's see if Dakka can get it...
