Einstein's Riddle Solution

Some have claimed this to be the worlds hardest riddle. It isn't? It is a decent riddle, though, and a fun one for those who like riddles with systematic solutions and others may have other ways.

A chart seems like the most useful tool to help solve this riddle: Five columns for the five houses, and five rows for nationality, house color, type of drink, type of cigar, and finally, pets.

Clue #8 states the man in the middle house drinks milk, so start by filling in that one of the 25 boxes created.

Then, deduce as much as possible from each clue as it becomes usable. The Norwegian living in the first house (# 9) could mean the first on the left or the right, since it isn't specified. Assume the left (first on chart) for now. Often, with riddles or puzzles, it is faster to make an assumption and if it doesn't work out go back and try the other way, rather than trying to hold open both possibilities while analyzing the other clues. Clue #14 says the Norwegian lives next to the blue house, so you can fill in the house color in the second column.

Clue #4 says the green house is to the left of the white house, and #5 says it is occupied by a coffee drinker. The only place that works is in column four, so you can fill in color and drink there, and white for the color of the fifth.

Clue #1 says the British man is in the red house, and the third house is the only one that has neither color nor nationality specified yet, so you can fill in those two boxes. This also gives you the color of the first house, since only yellow is left. Yellow smokes Dunhill (#7), so you get that too.

Horses are next to the Dunhill smoker (#11). Put that in the second column and here you are so far:

have to admit that it was stumping at this point, until start looking for "clumps" of information. The idea is that if you can put three or more things together at this point, there is likely only one column they will fit in. In this case, start with clue #12: The man who smokes Blue Master drinks beer. That is two bits of information that go together.

Now you have to determine what other bit of information can be "attached" to that. From what you have on the chart, you can see that the Norwegian smokes Dunhill and the British man drinks milk, so you rule out two nationalities. #13 says the German smokes Prince, and #3 says the Danish man drinks tea, so you are left with just the Swedish man, who you now know smokes Blue Master and drinks beer. Scanning the clues for more information about the Swedish man you see that he has dogs (# 2). The only place that these four items fit is column five, so we fill that in.

Now it gets a bit easier. The "Blends" smoker is next to a water-drinker (#15) and the cat owner (# 10), which fits only in house 2 now, so you can put "blends" in 2 and "water" in 1. That leaves only "tea" for 2. Clue # 3 says the Danish man drinks tea, so you get that as well, which leaves just one slot (house 4) for the German.

The German smokes Prince (#13), which leaves only one slot (house 3) for the Pall Malls. This is how the chart now looks:

Clue # 6 says the person who smokes Pall Mall rears birds (house 3). Clue #10 says the man who smokes Blends lives next to the one who keeps cats, so "cats" can only fit in the house 1 column. That leaves but one slot open, so the coffee-drinking, Prince Cigar-smoking German in the green house owns the fish in Einstein's riddle.

Einstein's Riddle Question

Want to see MY OTHER BLOGS? a simple click Here or Here   ««