Are you part of the 2%?!
see more Dropping The Science
I’m sure there are people who can do this kind of thing in their heads. I’m not one of them – but I did get the right answer in 18 minutes, using pen and paper (all that time I spent with logic problem books as a kid finally paid off!)
Can you beat me?!
Please leave your FULL answer (house colour, nationality, drink, cigar brand, and pet for each house) and the time it took you in the comments. I’ve turned on full comment moderation to avoid early birds spoiling it for the latecomers, and will reveal the answer and all the comments on Monday morning.
The answers are available in the comments of the original post – but NO PEEKING!
Nothing but bragging rights up for grabs, I’m afraid. But HAVE FUN anyway – that’s an order!
Hi, actually I solved this problem quite a long time ago(I think it took me something about 20 minutes for the first time and I used paper, pen and scissors) but then I realized that there is really simple solution based on psychology: Einstein was German so he probably had chosen German as the answer. It’s questionable if he wanted other people to find out this way or it is coincidence but as I remember the right answer was German.
Could be a double bluff 🙂
Einstein was born in 1879, and didn’t speak or write until many years after that. Thus, it is unreasonable to believe that he posited this riddle early in the 19th century, 60-70 years before his birth and ability to speak. So, the correct answer is that it is a trick question. Einstein ate the fish for lunch. I determined this in 12 seconds.
What did I win?
A fish, smarty pants. I left it in False Creek for you to retrieve.
Erm …”early in the 19th century”? Really? Fifty or sixty years before he was born?
Amazing that Einstein guy. Most of us have to wait until after we’re born to come up with pointless time-wasting conundrums.
Some people seem to have ignored the order to have fun.
Einstein wasn’t alive early during the 19th Century.
What do I win?
where did they bury the survivors?
Jamaica?
No, wait, that’s a different joke
Wow, that took a while (just shy of 2h- I can’t believe I spent that much time on a quiz but I hate not getting the answer once I’ve started. Probably why I’m a lousy scientist, beating uninteresting projects into mediocre publications). It wasn’t clear that the green and white houses were adjacent, but if I assume they are it’s quite fast.
yellow, Norwegian, water, Dunhill, cats
blue, Danish, tea, Blend, horse
red, Brit, milk, PM, bird
green, German, coffee, Prince, fish
white, Swedish, beer, BM, dog
Ok, now I can have lunch!
I often tell people that stubbornness is the most important qualification for doing a PhD or, indeed, science in general 🙂
OK, so I already have five comments pointing out (a couple, from first-time commenters, quite snarkily) that clearly the date on the puzzle is wrong – it’s supposed to say 20th century, not 19th. I didn’t write the puzzle – it’s from the Dropping The Science site linked under the image – so please stop yelling at me! 😉
Okay! On my lunch break, with a face full of avocado, salad, and the phone ringing non-stop, I did manage to solve it (I’m pretty sure) in about 30 min. I am going to give this to my 10 y old who will probably have the answer in 5 min. without breaking a sweat. Here is my solution:
First house: Yellow, Norwegian, cats, water, Dunhill
2nd house: Blue, Dane, horses, tea, Blend
3rd house: Red, Brit., birds, milk, PallMall
4th house: Green, German, FISH, coffee, Prince
5th house: White, Swede, dogs, beer, BlueMaster
I am assuming that this is the only combination that works, as the latter stages were done by trial and error, and luckily for me it worked out without having to go through all the possibilities.
Nice work!
It was actually possible to do the whole thing without trial and error, although I lost a few minutes trying to figure out how! I hate having to guess, having worn through multiple erasers that way when working on the hardest Sudokus.
I wonder if this is why Klaus is German on American Dad.
http://currentecology.blogspot.ca/2012/05/answer-to-einsteins-riddle-now-with.html
I’ve always thought of Klaus as Austrian for some reason
Took me a little more than 20 minutes, but my excuse is that I’m on holidays and therefore not at my brainy best :-). Got it:
House 1 – Yellow, Norwegian, Water, Dunhill, Cats
House 2 – Blue, Dane, Tea, Blend, Horse
House 3 – Red, Brit, Milk, Pall Mall, Birds
House 4 – Green, German, Coffee, Prince, FISH!!
House 5 – White, Swede, Beer, Bluemaster, Dogs
Love these puzzles – thanks for sharing this one!
Glad you enjoyed it! I’ll post any others that come my way, too
I don’t see why the famous physicist Albert Einstein couldn’t have written it in the 19th century. He was born in 1879, so he lived his first 21 years in it. If, indeed, we are talking about the same Albert Einstein and not a different Albert Einstein, for example the gas fitter who lives at 37 Durbar Mansions, Matabeleland Crescent, Kensington.
Anyway, here’s my answer – the Dane keeps fish.
More fully –
No. 1 is green and a coffee-drinking Norwegian lives there, smoking Pall Mall and keeping birds.
The German lives at Blue No. 2. He drinks water, smokes Prince and is a keen equestrian.
Milk-drinker Swede lives at Yellow No. 3, and he smokes Dunhill while walking his dogs.
Empty bottles of Beer are found outside No. 4, the red and catty house of Bluemaster Brit.
Meanwhile, at whitewashed No. 5, our Dane sips tea, smokes Blend and admires his fish.
This took me at least five tries and a lot longer than 18 minutes. I was worried by the implicit assumption that we are looking at the houses from the front and they are all in a line (all such things being relative) but the solution is consistent with that view. Another thing that foxed me was the implicit assumption (by me) that ‘neighbours’ necessarily live next door to one another.
I had the same worries, especially the looking at the houses from the front assumption – but assumed that there was no trick involved that required semantic nitpicking about the meaning of the words neighbour, left of, etc.
Got it in about half an hour, including distractions.
Evidence, please
I have nothing to declare but my genius.
I did it on a spreadsheet, and didn’t save it. I actually ended up with 2 possible configurations, from which I found out that the German lived in either house 4 or 5 and had the fish. At that point I didn’t bother to check which was right (they were otherwise identical), or if they were both correct.
Do you every look at Richard Wiseman’s puzzles? I had a go at the one yesterday and think I figured it out quite quickly.
Haven’t attempted Einstein’s one though…
ZOMG, that’s the kind of website I can get lost in for days! Thanks for the link!
Vojtěch, Megan, Steve, Edmund and Robyn have it right!
Cromercrox does not
The accuracy of Bob’s solution is unknown
Thanks to all those who played!
Thanks for the puzzle– loved it! For the record, both my 14 y old and 10 y old solved it correctly faster than I did…
It’s obvious that the solution in nobody. The Norwegian ran out of cigars, so he smoked the fish instead.
He nicked it off the German, who was too busy making an extension to his living room.
Sorry Bob, that’s a smokescreen and red herring.
It was closer to brown after it had been smoked, though.
Oh dear.
Bugger
What’s the difference- Swedes, Danes, Brits? They’re all Euros…
Noooooo…. Swedes are not the Euros… oh, wait… but no, not really. We have this water between us and Europe you see 😉 …long story…
You call THAT water between you and Europe?! Sorry, that’s not gonna impress a Brit…
ok it took my 40 minutes, but I was nursing and distracting a 10 month old while doing it!
yellow, norweigen, water, dunhill, cats
blue, dane, tea, blend, horse,
red, british, milk, pall mall bird
green, german, coffee, prince, fish
white, swede, beer, beer, dogs
I am *so* glad I didn’t spend the time trying to solve this.
Besides, it’s clear that the cat belonged to Schroedinger, who was of course German.