Solve This Einstein Riddle

[darklord700]

http://www.businessinsider.com/can-y...-riddle-2015-9

Just found this Einstein Riddle and the article states that only 2% of the people can solve it. I think 2% is a bit exagerrated and if you have Excel this shouldn't be impossible to solve.

Comparing to the Singaporean riddle that went viral a few months back, this is how a riddle should be written and given.

====================================
There are five houses in five different colors in a row. In each house lives a person with a different nationality. The five owners drink a certain type of beverage, smoke a certain brand of cigar, and keep a certain pet. No owners have the same pet, smoke the same brand of cigar, or drink the same beverage.

Other facts:

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 immediate left of the white house.
5. The green house's owner drinks coffee.
6. The owner who smokes Pall Mall rears birds.
7. The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill.
8. The owner living in the center house drinks milk.
9. The Norwegian lives in the first house.
10. The owner who smokes Blends lives next to the one who keeps cats.
11. The owner who keeps the horse lives next to the one who smokes Dunhill.
12. The owner who smokes Bluemasters drinks beer.
13. The German smokes Prince.
14. The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
15. The owner who smokes Blends lives next to the one who drinks water.

The question is: Who owns the fish?

[GGG]

What's hard about this? It's just your basic logic problem.

Now you can probably confuse your self by putting the houses in a circle or something but the solution seems simple

[Dan02]

I doubt that only 2% of the population can solve the problem, as in have the ability to, I think it's more of 98% of the population looks at it and thinks I ain't wasting my time on that. Especially when you can just skip to the end of the tutorial video.

Though the smartass in me wants to answer that as presented it doesn't suggest anywhere that any of them would own a fish

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Dan02

I doubt that only 2% of the population can solve the problem, as in have the ability to, I think it's more of 98% of the population looks at it and thinks I ain't wasting my time on that. Especially when you can just skip to the end of the tutorial video.

Though the smartass in me wants to answer that as presented it doesn't suggest anywhere that any of them would own a fish

This was my first thought as well that there is no fish. Then I went through to see if a discrete solution was available or if it was one of the where do you bury the survivors type things

[polak]

Yeah tried doing it by hand. Lost track of a couple variables and now I'm hooped. Crap.

It's definitely solvable if you have the time. Just draw 5 silos and list every variable in all of them as you go and then go back and start eliminating them. I tried doodling it on a piece of paper and got pretty close I think. I regret not trying it in excel right away but I can't spend more time on this unless I wanna work until 10 pm.

[Fuzz]

My guess...

Spoiler!

German, in the green house, drinking coffee, smoking Prince has the fish

[darklord700]

Originally Posted by polak

Yeah tried doing it by hand. Lost track of a couple variables and now I'm hooped. Crap.

It's definitely solvable if you have the time. Just draw 5 silos and list every variable in all of them as you go and then start eliminating them as you go.

Doing it in Excel will make this puzzle very solvable.

[polak]

Originally Posted by darklord700

Doing it in Excel will make this puzzle very solvable.

That's why I tried doing it by hand. Felt like excel would be cheating. Now I might change my mind haha

[Locke]

Way to misspell 'Einstein' Einstein.

[darklord700]

Originally Posted by Locke

Way to misspell 'Einstein' Einstein.

That's the correct spelling from my motherland.

[edslunch]

Nm

[Locke]

Originally Posted by darklord700

That's the correct spelling from my motherland.

I only believe what Wikipedia tells me to believe.

[darklord700]

Originally Posted by Locke

I only believe what Wikipedia tells me to believe.

OK, changed the spelling back to the one approved by Wok With Chan.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by darklord700

OK, changed the spelling back to the one approved by Wok With Chan.

Haha! I was just being sarcastic, but okay.

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by polak

That's why I tried doing it by hand. Felt like excel would be cheating. Now I might change my mind haha

If I were to try and solve this, my very first step would have been to create a logic puzzle grid.

Unless the rules of the game say "no pencil and paper" (or digital equivalents), it ain't cheating to organize your thoughts.

That said, I can buy at face value the claim that only 2% of people could solve it. Some of these logic puzzles require deductive leaps that many people - myself included - struggle with in these contexts. I love logic puzzles. But I'm only 50/50 on solving them without a hint, at best.

[handgroen]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

My guess...

Spoiler!

German, in the green house, drinking coffee, smoking Prince has the fish

seconded

[polak]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

If I were to try and solve this, my very first step would have been to create a logic puzzle grid.

This is how I approached it. Like I said though, I made the mistake of "skipping" ahead and skipping some variables and penciling in some variables from when I read the riddle the first time. If you list them all it should be pretty doable.

[Canehdianman]

Solve This Einstein Riddle LSAT question


*shudder* horrible flashbacks to the logic games portion of that....

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

If I were to try and solve this, my very first step would have been to create a logic puzzle grid.

Unless the rules of the game say "no pencil and paper" (or digital equivalents), it ain't cheating to organize your thoughts.

That said, I can buy at face value the claim that only 2% of people could solve it. Some of these logic puzzles require deductive leaps that many people - myself included - struggle with in these contexts. I love logic puzzles. But I'm only 50/50 on solving them without a hint, at best.

in the range of logic puzzles this one is easy but large. No multi-step tests of you use a grid. Just fill out the grid going through the clues, transfer all information through to all cells, apply all the clues again and repeat.

No if this person is x this person is y and that makes this person a which is not possible type of leaps.

I the biggest thing is if you don't know how to build the grid you probably can't solve it

[annasuave]

Its a fairly straightforward logic puzzle. The easiest way to solve is to construct a grid where you can visualize the info given as a dot for true and an x for false. It doesn't need any special brain powers to solve. Nah. Just a grid. And a fondness for logic puzzles.