Who own's the fish?

[HerefordSire]

I ran into this question performing research. Can you answer it?

Einstein's Intelligence Quiz

Einstein wrote this quiz last century. He said that 98% of the people in the world cannot solve the quiz.

There are 5 houses in 5 different colors
In each house lives a person with a different nationality
These 5 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 drink.

Here's the question: Who owns the fish?

The Brit lives in a red house
The Swede keeps dogs as pets
The Dane drinks tea
The green house is on the left of the white house
The green house owner drinks coffee
The person who smokes Pall Mall rears birds
The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill
The man living in the house right in the middle drinks milk
The Norwegian lives in the first house
The man who smokes Blend lives next door to the one who keeps cats.
The man who keeps horses lives next door to the man who smokes Dunhill
The owner who smokes Blue Master drinks beer
The German smokes Prince
The Norwegian lives next to the blue house
The man who smokes Blend has a neighbor who drinks water

With these 15 clues the problem is solvable.

http://www.business.uiuc.edu/broker/iq.htm

 

[funky 4-Her]

anyone got it yet? my head hurts. . lol

 

[1982vett]

After an hour and 19 minutes. I have an answer. The German has the fish.

 

[VanC]

After 3 seconds, and knowing that vett is very good at these things, I agree with vett. ;-) ;-)

 

[1982vett]

After 3 seconds, and knowing that vett is very good at these things, I agree with vett. ;-) ;-)

I'm no Einstine so I could be wrong. After spending an hour and 20 minutes working on it I didn't go back to check my figuring. Somehow I don't figure myself among the 2% that has the ability to solve it so I must have made a bad assumption along the way somewhere. Especially since I came out with the Brit drinking milk instead of tea and the German doesn't drink Beer. :shock:

 

[donnaIL]

I agree with your answer vet, I have the german with the fish and the brit drinking milk...sounds like we have the same answer.

 

[VanC]

After 3 seconds, and knowing that vett is very good at these things, I agree with vett. ;-) ;-)

I'm no Einstine so I could be wrong. After spending an hour and 20 minutes working on it I didn't go back to check my figuring. Somehow I don't figure myself among the 2% that has the ability to solve it so I must have made a bad assumption along the way somewhere. Especially since I came out with the Brit drinking milk instead of tea and the German doesn't drink Beer. :shock:

Maybe Einstein was being politically correct and didn't want to be accused of stereotyping.

 

[Natural_State]

Someone sent me this quiz about a year ago. Almost drove me crazy! I came up with the same answer as vett, but it took me a lot longer. Three hours, a little cussing, and a lot of balled up pieces of paper, lol.

 

[Alan]

Ahh,... I own a fish :?

 

[ga. prime]

That looks like one of the analytical reasoning q's on the LSAT.

 

[Keren]

No. 101 Einstein Lane is a yellow brick house owned by a man who has recently immigrated from Norway. He enjoys cats, Dunhill cigars and a refreshing glass of water.

No. 102 Einstein Lane is a blue painted timber house, owned by a chap of Danish origin. He breeds Dutch Warmblood horses, drinks tea and enjoys Blend cigars.

No. 103 Einstein Lane is a modest red brick home. A rental property, it is currently occupied by a British gentleman, who prefers milk over the traditional English tea, smokes Pall Mall cigarettes and enjoys breeding and hand-raising birds.

No. 104 Einstein Lane is a modern green building including over one acre of landscaped gardens. It is owned by a wealthy German family, and used by them as a weekender. The maids are certain to keep the pantry well stocked with coffee and Prince cigars, as well as a vast range of fish food for the family's fine collection of marine, tropical and gold fish.

No. 105 Einstein Lane is a stunning white stone building, over 150 years old and on the heritage register. Currently unoccupied (the owner is in his native Sweden on a family business trip, at this stage uncertain as to when he will return), it is well known as this state's finest Cockapoodle breeding centre (Cocker spaniel cross poodle designer dogs). The owner is well known for his show winning dogs, as well as being the poster child for the family business which owns the Foster's beer company and Blue Master cigar brand.

 

[Keren]

Very enjoyable, thanks! But easy ...

I love logic grid puzzles

 

[HerefordSire]

Solution to the Einstein Quiz: the Fifth Pet

Almost all the answers to the Einstein Quiz I have seen on the web go through the same mechanical process to solving the puzzle. They chart out the problem, lay out each clue graphically, and slowly build a picture of which persons, drinks and pets are in which houses. Its a logical, technical and involved process. If you do all this you inevitably conclude that it is the German who has fish.

But is this the right way to solve the problem? No its not! Nowhere in the problem, except in the question, is the word fish found. Thus the fifth pet might just as well be elephants as fish. After a lot of work you can safely conclude that the German has the fifth pet, but you have to ASSUME that the fifth pet is fish in order to conclude the German has fish. But you have no basis for making this assumption. Note that Einstein was very careful to separate the "Facts" from the "Question" in this puzzle.

So the correct answer to the Einstein Quiz is: You have no idea if anyone keeps fish or not. Once you grasp the nature of the problem correctly, its rather simple to solve. And it is just like Einstein to give us a puzzle like this, for he stressed examining assumptions, and once wrote: "The important thing is to not stop questioning."

http://www.amazeingart.com/fun/einstein ... nswer.html

 

[Lammie]

Phhhht!

 

[brandonm_13]

I got it after about 20 minutes. I think too many people are getting it to say 98% of people couldn't get it. It wasn't all that easy though. It was more of a process of elimination for me.

 

[ga. prime]

That test was written by Alfred Einstein, not Albert.

 

[HerefordSire]

Nothing would surprise me.

 

[Keren]

Solution to the Einstein Quiz: the Fifth Pet

Almost all the answers to the Einstein Quiz I have seen on the web go through the same mechanical process to solving the puzzle. They chart out the problem, lay out each clue graphically, and slowly build a picture of which persons, drinks and pets are in which houses. Its a logical, technical and involved process. If you do all this you inevitably conclude that it is the German who has fish.

But is this the right way to solve the problem? No its not! Nowhere in the problem, except in the question, is the word fish found. Thus the fifth pet might just as well be elephants as fish. After a lot of work you can safely conclude that the German has the fifth pet, but you have to ASSUME that the fifth pet is fish in order to conclude the German has fish. But you have no basis for making this assumption. Note that Einstein was very careful to separate the "Facts" from the "Question" in this puzzle.

So the correct answer to the Einstein Quiz is: You have no idea if anyone keeps fish or not. Once you grasp the nature of the problem correctly, its rather simple to solve. And it is just like Einstein to give us a puzzle like this, for he stressed examining assumptions, and once wrote: "The important thing is to not stop questioning."

http://www.amazeingart.com/fun/einstein ... nswer.html

Thanks for bringing this up, Hfordsire. My first thought on looking at this puzzle was that it was odd that nowhere does it say that there was a fish. And so I thought, maybe no one owns the fish. But I thought that was just me being cynical, I didnt realise other people were thinking the same way, so I didnt post it.

But then again I got more fun out of solving the puzzle the other way, plus it amused me for longer

 

[Ryan]

Solution to the Einstein Quiz: the Fifth Pet

Almost all the answers to the Einstein Quiz I have seen on the web go through the same mechanical process to solving the puzzle. They chart out the problem, lay out each clue graphically, and slowly build a picture of which persons, drinks and pets are in which houses. Its a logical, technical and involved process. If you do all this you inevitably conclude that it is the German who has fish.

But is this the right way to solve the problem? No its not! Nowhere in the problem, except in the question, is the word fish found. Thus the fifth pet might just as well be elephants as fish. After a lot of work you can safely conclude that the German has the fifth pet, but you have to ASSUME that the fifth pet is fish in order to conclude the German has fish. But you have no basis for making this assumption. Note that Einstein was very careful to separate the "Facts" from the "Question" in this puzzle.

So the correct answer to the Einstein Quiz is: You have no idea if anyone keeps fish or not. Once you grasp the nature of the problem correctly, its rather simple to solve. And it is just like Einstein to give us a puzzle like this, for he stressed examining assumptions, and once wrote: "The important thing is to not stop questioning."

http://www.amazeingart.com/fun/einstein ... nswer.html

Thanks for bringing this up, Hfordsire. My first thought on looking at this puzzle was that it was odd that nowhere does it say that there was a fish. And so I thought, maybe no one owns the fish. But I thought that was just me being cynical, I didnt realise other people were thinking the same way, so I didnt post it.

But then again I got more fun out of solving the puzzle the other way, plus it amused me for longer

Its easy to say this now, after reading through the thread, but I, too, noticed that nowhere did it say anything about fish except for the original question. Though, when seeing problems like this I am prone to thinking that there is usually a simply, obvious answer that doesn't require extensive problem solving. Maybe I am one of the smartest 2% of the people in the world? More likely, I am usually just skeptical of problems like this.

Ryan

 

[Keren]

Ryan, looks like we in the 2% group are just the most suspicious/skeptical/cynical lol