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riddles >> easy >> HELP WITH ALBERT EINSTEIN RIDDLE!!!!!
(Message started by: malavide on Jan 8th, 2003, 11:34am)

Title: HELP WITH ALBERT EINSTEIN RIDDLE!!!!!
Post by malavide on Jan 8th, 2003, 11:34am
I've tried every thing, and damn I just cant solve it, please help
and send me the results - malavide@yahoo.com.

here it goes.  

1. In a street there is 5 houses, painted five different colours.
2. In each house lives a person of a different nationality.
3. These five home owners each drink a different kind of beverage, smoke a different brand of cigar and keep a different pet.

The question is, Who owns the fish?
specify his nationality, house colour, brand of cigar and preferred beverage.

Hints,
The Briton live in the red house.
The Swede keeps dogs as pets.
The Dane drinks tea.
The green house is on the left side of the white house.
The owner of the green house drinks coffee.
The person who smokes Pall Mall rears birds.
The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill.
The man in the centre house drinks milk.
The Norwegian live in the first house.
The man who smokes blends lives nxt 2 the one who keeps cats.
The man who keeps horses lives nxt 2 the man who smokes Dunhill.
The man who smokes Bleu Master drinks beer.
The German smokes Prince.
The Norwegian lives nxt 2 the blue house.
The man who smokes Blend has a neighbour who drinks water.

Thats it, this riddle is one reason why peolpe thought he was mad. well maybe he was. Please return ur info to me.
thx :-[

Title: Re: HELP WITH ALBERT EINSTEIN RIDDLE!!!!!
Post by towr on Jan 8th, 2003, 12:19pm
the way to solve puzzles like this is to make a table, and just filling it in as far as you can, than gamble the rest..
I doubt it has anything to do with Einstein whatsoever.. It's just a logic puzzle..

Title: Re: HELP WITH ALBERT EINSTEIN RIDDLE!!!!!
Post by malavide on Jan 8th, 2003, 12:28pm
i did all that stuff, but just cant seem to get it into place, maybe u wanna help since ur an expert on solving riddles and puzzles. pleeze

Einstein wrote the riddle, and he said that 98 % of the world's population will not solve it, so be part of the 2 % that did solve it, and let me know whats the answers.
o yea, thx 4 the reply!

Title: Re: HELP WITH ALBERT EINSTEIN RIDDLE!!!!!
Post by Garzahd on Jan 8th, 2003, 12:41pm
It's a standard issue logic puzzle. People publish magazines with this kind of stuff in them.

Make a 26x26 table as follows:
Along the left edge, from top to bottom, red, yellow, white, green, blue, tea, water, beer, milk, coffee, Dunhill, Bleu, Prince, Pall, blend, dog, bird. cat, horse, fish, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th.
Along the top edge, from left to right, Brit, Swede, Dane, German, Norway, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, dog, bird, cat, horse, fish, Dunhill, Bleu, Prince, Pall, blend, tea, water, beer, milk, coffee.

Now you have a 25x25 grid with headers. Draw darker lines every 5 boxes, separating the different types of stuff.
Now you have a 5x5 grid of 5x5 boxes. Cross out the 10 boxes closest to the lower right corner, keep the 15 closest to the upper left, like so:
OOOOO
OOOOX
OOOXX
OOXXX
OXXXX


(it's much easier in the magazines when they generate this grid for you)

Now put "yes" or "no" in each box based on the clues. You'll have to infer a lot, but some of it is obvious... if (Red and Brit) is yes, then clearly (Red and Dane) is no, etc.
And if (Red and Dane) is no, and (tea and Dane) is yes, then (Red and tea) must also be no because tea=Dane.

The X-is-next-to-Y clues will have to wait until you filled out most of the grid.

Good luck! (Now I have to fill out my grid...)

Title: Re: HELP WITH ALBERT EINSTEIN RIDDLE!!!!!
Post by towr on Jan 8th, 2003, 12:44pm
I'll see if I have time and will to solve it... (sigh, so much things to do.. and I'm too lazy to even do the things I'm supposed to do..)

[edit] nevermind the rest, I forgot something

it's a bit larger than a standard logic-puzzle..[/edit]

Title: Re: HELP WITH ALBERT EINSTEIN RIDDLE!!!!!
Post by Jeremiah Smith on Jan 8th, 2003, 1:03pm
I've seen this one before... I forget the answer, though.

Title: Re: HELP WITH ALBERT EINSTEIN RIDDLE!!!!!
Post by James Fingas on Jan 8th, 2003, 1:06pm
Malavide,

I don't know whether or not Einstein was crazy, but I got the answer through trial-and-error. I'm not sure there's just one solution, though. :( I also assumed that the "first house" is the one on the left.
Einstein himself owns the fish, lives in the green house, smokes prince, and drinks coffee

Title: Re: HELP WITH ALBERT EINSTEIN RIDDLE!!!!!
Post by towr on Jan 8th, 2003, 1:07pm
http://www.niehs.nih.gov/kids/rd1tx.htm
somewhere halfway down the page..

Title: Re: HELP WITH ALBERT EINSTEIN RIDDLE!!!!!
Post by malavide on Jan 8th, 2003, 1:08pm
okay so r u gonna work it out? cuz just now i was thinking that the grid u gave me wasnt quite right, but it makes sortof sense to me, :) thx a million!

Title: Re: HELP WITH ALBERT EINSTEIN RIDDLE!!!!!
Post by malavide on Jan 8th, 2003, 1:11pm
so is any1 gonna work it out for me? cuz the table thing method doesnt quite work 4 me, cuz i'm new to it :)

Title: Please finish it for me
Post by malavide on Jan 8th, 2003, 1:37pm
so is any 1 gonna solve the bluddy riddle for me, cuz this table tipe of thing is new to me!!!

Title: Re: HELP WITH ALBERT EINSTEIN RIDDLE!!!!!
Post by Kozo Morimoto on Jan 8th, 2003, 3:39pm
It's quite easy, there are lots of web sites that tell you how to use the grid.

I've got an Excel spreadsheet with the grid filled out, so how do I attach it to this thread?

It's completely filled out, so it doesn't tell you the steps it took to be filled...

Title: Re: HELP WITH ALBERT EINSTEIN RIDDLE!!!!!
Post by william wu on Jan 8th, 2003, 4:03pm
If you have webspace, you can upload it there and then insert a link here. If you don't, you can send it to me and I'll serve it for a while.

It's generally agreed that Einstein probably didn't write this puzzle.

The now-obsolete analytical section of the GRE was filled with grid puzzles like these.


Title: Re: HELP WITH ALBERT EINSTEIN RIDDLE!!!!!
Post by redPEPPER on Jan 9th, 2003, 3:34am
malavide, why do you want someone to solve the riddle for you?  Doesn't it make sense that you learn how to solve it instead?  I mean, I could tell you that the German owns the fish (this is the classic answer, I didn't verify it here).  Do you feel better with that answer?  ;D

You could Google too.  Solutions with explanations are available everywhere.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%22who+owns+the+fish%22

Title: Re: HELP WITH ALBERT EINSTEIN RIDDLE!!!!!
Post by william wu on Jan 10th, 2003, 1:08pm
Here's Kozo Morimoto's spiffy chart, all filled out with color:

http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~wwu/riddles/einsteinRiddle.xls

Title: Re: HELP WITH ALBERT EINSTEIN RIDDLE!!!!!
Post by nietisne_ on Jan 13th, 2003, 3:47pm
this kind of riddles have fun with a pencil and a piece of paper but u would really enjoy them without any pencil or paper.all i remember is that the german has the fish :)) and as i was saying from the beginning at least 20 people out of 100 can find the solution just by guessing.i have always heard that riddle as the riddle of einstein and i was a little surprised to find out that it is generally believed that he didn't wrote that.But i will take your word.i am just curious why was the riddle named the einstein's riddle any ideas ??

have fun

Title: Re: HELP WITH ALBERT EINSTEIN RIDDLE!!!!!
Post by nrbblr20001 on Feb 1st, 2003, 9:54pm
:Dthis one took SOME real time  the fact is that such logic puzzles can be solved by making use of GRIDS, right Then....
jotting downs the rights and crosses by direct question like "BRIT is in red house etc " we get one tenth of the grid filled the PuZZLE lies in the fact that " IF MY NEIGHBOUR HAS GOT 'xyz' it means I don't have that " so go Ahead ! put a cross on that box ... go on so forth u'll reach the answers " HAVE A BREAK AT Times :" else its gonna get u real cankY!!

the first house is norwegians , yello and smokes duncan
second blue house follwed by ...red(the ''milk :teetotaller') , green and white .

and u get greman has the fish!!!
chow!


Title: Re: HELP WITH ALBERT EINSTEIN RIDDLE!!!!!
Post by Yoda on Aug 15th, 2003, 9:03am
hi. I'm actually an ESL teacher and I use this puzzle all the time for teaching English. Do not make a 25X25 grid. That is a waste of time. Make a 5X5 grid and do fill in what you can. Once you get that far (and get stuck) start figuring out what things  can't be. In particular figure out what color the first house can't be. It can't be red because some other nationality lives in the red house. It can't be green because the green is next to the white one. It's can't be white because that is next to the green one. it can't be blue because the first house is next to the blue house. So it must be yellow. In this puzzle the process of elimination is the easiest way to go.

Title: Re: HELP WITH ALBERT EINSTEIN RIDDLE!!!!!
Post by Dostoevskys Mouse on Oct 15th, 2003, 10:34pm
Honestly, I just looked at this post and figured out the answer in about fifteen, maybe twenty minutes.  And I am not good at either riddles or math, so I really don't think the problem is that hard.  

I didn't exactly use a 25x25 grid, though...  I made a 5x5 grid, with a row of numbers at the top, one through five, and a column on the left with five boxes reading Nation, Color, Cigar, Drink, and Pet, respectively.  Then I filled in the three related bits given in the riddle: #1 is the Norwegian, #2 is blue, and #3 drinks milk.  

There's no trick to that part.  We know the Norwegian lives in the first house, and we know he lives next to the blue house.  We know the milk-drinking guy lives in the middle house.  That's all.

Next, I made a second 5x5 graph, and listed the "impossible" stuff -- for instance, under "#1," next to "impossible colors" I would put "blue."  I know the Norwegian lives in house #1, and I know he doesn't live in the blue house, because he lives next to it.  I also know he doesn't drink milk; that's #3.  I also know, of course, that the Norwegian is not a Dane; since he is not a Dane, and since the Dane drinks tea, the Norwegian does not drink tea.  Similarly, since the second house is blue, it doesn't belong to the Briton, whose house we know is red.  And so on.

This is how I figured out that the last two houses are the green and white house.  We're told the green house is left of the white house, and since the second house is blue, none of the first three can be white.  The third cannot be green, because its owner drinks milk, and the fellow who drinks coffee lives in the green house. Therefore, in order for green to be left of white, green and white must be the last two houses.

And so on, for everything.  Every time one of my "impossible" boxes got four terms in it, the fifth, remaining term had to be the answer.  For instance, if I had "impossible drinks: tea, water, coffee, milk," I would know that that house had to go with beer.  I just went on like this until I had all of the boxes filled in, and the last empty box -- well, that was where "fish" went.

There's no guessing, no trial and error; everything follows from everything else.  It's not that bad, really.

Title: Re: HELP WITH ALBERT EINSTEIN RIDDLE!!!!!
Post by tseuG on Nov 30th, 2003, 3:02am
  If we assume that the green house need not be on the immediate left of the white one (that is, it need not be adjacent), we get an interesting variation. Who else can own the fish now? (I solved it accidentally when I read the clue this way)

Title: Re: HELP WITH ALBERT EINSTEIN RIDDLE!!!!!
Post by GolgiApparatus on Dec 6th, 2003, 6:15pm
It cannot be solved with the green house anywhere else.  Double check your hints, because you made a mistake somewhere.

Title: Re: HELP WITH ALBERT EINSTEIN RIDDLE!!!!!
Post by tseuG on Dec 6th, 2003, 9:31pm
     Here are two configurations which satisfy the clues, as far as I checked:

[hide]

i)  

  norwegian     dane       brit        german     swede
  yellow          blue        red        green        white
  water           tea         milk        coffee      beer
  dunhill          blends     pallmall    prince      bleumasters
  cats             horses     birds      fish          dogs

ii)  This is the configuration where green is not immediately to the left of white.

  norwegian     german     swede       brit              dane
  green           blue         white        red               yellow
  coffee          water       milk          beer              tea
  pallmall         prince       blends      bleumasters    dunhill
  birds            cats         dogs         horses           fish
 
[/hide]






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