Wednesday, November 23, 2011

"Who owns the fish?" - a brain teaser from Einstein

This brainteaser, reportedly written by Einstein is so difficult that Einstein said 98% of the people in the world could not figure it out. This should give you something to do over a long Thanksgiving weekend.

The solution is here, though it is nearly as complicated as the puzzler!

There are five houses in a row and each house is a different color. In each house lives a person with a different nationality. The five owners drink a different drink, smoke a different brand of cigar and keep a different pet, one of which is a fish.
The question is-- who owns the fish?

Hints:

1. The Brit lives in the 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 person who smokes Pall Malls keeps birds.
7. The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhills.
8. The man living in the house right in the center drinks milk.
9. The man who smokes Blends lives next to the one who keeps cats.
10. The Norwegian lives in the first house.
11. The man who keeps horses lives next to the one who smokes Dunhills.
12. The owner who smokes Bluemasters drinks beer.
13. The German smokes Princes.
14. The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
15. The man who smokes Blends has a neighbor who drinks water.

There are no tricks; pure logic will get you the correct answer. And yes, there is enough information to arrive at the one and only correct answer.
If you get the correct answer, congratulations, you are one of the exclusive group of 121,348,731 people in the world who can.

4 comments:

Jamsco said...

Got it - but the question in the solution link is a little different - sport instead of cigars

David Booker said...

Thanks for reading, Jamsco. I think I fixed it.

Anonymous said...

great blog! I solved it using a flow chart application to create the 2d puzzle pieces. Then i moved them around till they fit.

Here is my work:
http://static.verbnoun.com/fish.png

David Booker said...

Excellent work, Verb Noun! Thanks so much for reading!