The Albert Einstein Riddle: Easy or Waste of Time?

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Okay, most of you guys are pretty clever judging by the IQ post...You've probably got this in your e-mail at some point...so do you know the answer? as I don't!

ARE YOU IN THE TOP 2% OF INTELLIGENT PEOPLE IN THE WORLD? SOLVE THE RIDDLE AND FIND OUT.

There are no tricks, just pure logic, so good luck and don't give up.

1. In a street there are five houses, painted five different colours.
2. In each house lives a person of different nationality.
3. These five homeowners each drink a different kind of beverage, smoke different brand of cigar and keep a different pet.

THE QUESTION: WHO OWNS THE FISH?

HINTS

1. The Brit lives in a 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 owner of the Green house drinks coffee.
6. The person who smokes Pall Mall rears birds.
7. The owner of the Yellow house smokes Dunhill.
8. The man living in the centre house drinks milk.
9. The Norwegian lives in the first house.
10. The man who smokes Blends lives next to the one who keeps cats.
11. The man who keeps horses lives next to the man who smokes Dunhill.
12. The man who smokes Blue Master drinks beer.
13. The German smokes Prince.
14. The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
15. The man who smokes Blends has a neighbour who drinks water.

ALBERT EINSTEIN WROTE THIS RIDDLE EARLY DURING THE 19th CENTURY. HE SAID THAT 98% OF THE WORLD POPULATION WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO SOLVE IT.

― james e l, Thursday, 12 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I don't think Albert Einstein wrote much in the early 19th century.

― adam, Thursday, 12 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Yep, and I doubt if many of those brands were around...but still, inaccuracies aside...

― james e l, Thursday, 12 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Well of course I've figured it out, but I'm going to keep it a surprise for you guys.

― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 12 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Einstein didn't know about Prolog! (Prolog = makes riddle easy)

― Sterling Clover, Thursday, 12 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Well, without Prolog I've figured it out. So yay both methods. :-)

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 12 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Yes, but why aren't all you smartarse bastards sticking your neck out to answer? I think it's the german, which explains why they have those channels in germany where fish just drive around on the tv.

― Ally, Thursday, 12 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

There's no thinking about it -- it either is, or it isn't.

― JM, Thursday, 12 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Ally is indeed full of wisdom. :-)

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 12 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

This is all we ever did in my 5th grade "talented and gifted class" yo. That and drawing pictures with the little turtle in Logo. Man I miss Logo.

― Josh, Thursday, 12 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Well it clearly IS the German, because the Norweigan lives in the first house, which is yellow, smokes Dunhills, rears cats, and inexplicably drinks only water. His neighbor, the Dane, is a filthy tea-drinker in a blue house - he smokes Blends and somehow has managed to usurp the housing board and bring horses to the 'hood. His neighbor to the right is a milk-drinker, which is odd because he SHOULD be a tea-drinker being British and all, but he likes Pall Malls and birds, which makes him a freak anyhow. This fish-luvvin' German lives on the Brit's right, drinking coffee and smoking Prince in his neon green gaudy ass house. The end of the block is a white house full of digusting ass dirty dogs, probably some sort of giant wolly dog being as their owner is a Swede. He drinks beer, which means he probably gives the dogs beer too, and smokes the Blues. The tobacco industry does exceedingly well on this block, btw.

― Ally, Thursday, 12 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Oh, and what do I win for being the first person to not just CLAIM to be right but actually try to prove it by, like, you know, answering? I hope it's a date with Tom's beard.

― Ally, Thursday, 12 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The German owns the fish cos I just did a google and found the right answer. God knows why, though.

― Johnathan, Thursday, 12 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Ah... life in the internet age.

― Sterling Clover, Thursday, 12 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Sez the one who used Prolog to solve it for him. ;)

― Josh, Thursday, 12 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I don't even know what the fuck Prolog is, for god's sake, am I an idiot or something? All I know is I won and I didn't cheat, I actually sat and thought about it for 15 minutes and goddamnit I haven't received my prize.

― Ally, Thursday, 12 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

It's so fucking obvious, guys! Nobody OWNS the fish except the fish! And, God, of course, but God is the fish. See, like the guy who KEEPS the dogs AS PETS, the guy who REARS birds or the guy who KEEPS cats. You can keep and rear and drink and smoke and inhabit whatever you want, but only the fish own everything on the entire planet including you and me. It's not okay to eat fish cuz they don't have any feelings. It is okay to feel the fish cuz they don't get many feedings.

The answer: the fish.

― Nude Spock, Thursday, 12 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

My monkey (ape, rather) ancestors didn't perish so that I would willfully abdicate my place at the top of the food chain. Who owns the fish? Humanity!

(Oh, and knowing how to progam in prolog is significantly more 3L13T3 than knowing how to google)

― Sterling Clover, Thursday, 12 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'd prefer to think that 98% of the world wouldn't bother trying to work it out. But anyway, my answer is:
Burt Reynolds.

― DG, Thursday, 12 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Listen, if I don't get a prize soon, I'm going to kill someone. I mean, I even wrote out HOW I figured it out. GRRRRR. I want a mystery date prize, thank you. If I get a prize I will share my 4th of July photos with everyone. *pouts* Where is my prize? Did I waste my time? Einstein is a bastard.

― Ally, Thursday, 12 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

all property is theft - noone and evryone owns the fish, but is the fish really a fish if it doesn't conceive of itself as a fish? God I miss logo - that was probably the higlight of two years of my childhood.

― Geoff, Thursday, 12 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Hot damn, I got it! And I only had to refer to Ally's answer ONCE - to make me realize that I can't read properly. (I'm still not sure how I got it in my head that the Norweigan couldn't own cats. That's just not right. Literally.)

More freakin' puzzles! My brain is mush! Albert Einstein is a fucking asshole - he couldn't carry Oppenheimer's jockstrap!

― David Raposa, Thursday, 12 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Ally I'd send you a pint of Shandy, but the one we sent josh last week still hasn't arrived. I think there might be a postal thief lurking on this board.

― Pete, Friday, 13 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'm clearly in the 98% because I couldn't be bothered to read past the first line. Anyone who is so insecure about their own intelligence that they need IQ tests and puzzles to prove it is clearly too DUMB to actually exist successfully in the world.

― masonic boom, Friday, 13 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Don't be bitter because you're too dumb and lazy to take a few minutes of bored downtime to figure out that Germans apparently love fish, Kate. It was a fairly easy puzzle.

― Ally, Friday, 13 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Maybe I am dumb and lazy, I admit that.

But I was tested, prodded, cut out and put with smart kids, skipped ahead a grade or two from the age of about 3 or 4 till about 16, so I have an irrational hatred of IQ tests, or any standardised tests or "brain teasing puzzles" or whatever. They wanted me to be a genius, I just wanted to get on with my life, which I wasn't allowed to do properly until I dropped out of school. So if I sound bitter whenever anyone brings up IQ tests or puzzles, that's why.

― masonic boom, Friday, 13 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Oh, I can understand that, I went thru the same thing, which is why I outright refused to take an SAT and dropped out of high school. I just found this puzzle amusing, everyone smoking and rearing bizarre animals and what not. I had never seen it before. I think having a reaction to every single thing that even remotely reminds you of that sort of experience isn't necessarily good, particularly when it causes you to out and out insult people on several different threads for even bringing up the topic.

― Ally, Friday, 13 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The School thing when the testm poke and prod you. I had all of that. I used it to my advantage. If I was smart enough to skip a year then I was certainly smart enough to demand money or gifts in kind from my 'rents to do it.

― Pete, Friday, 13 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

...which doesn't work unless you have parents with both the money and the will. They were a bit too clever to be blackmailed, they refused.

― Ally, Friday, 13 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

TRUE intelligence is whether you can apply your brain power to real- life situations. Being able to skip grades & answer multiple choice questions means fuck all, especially if you become socially crippled because of your "superior" intellect. There are a multitude of book- smart feebs out there in the world.

That said, they're a fun li'l exercise once in a while, if only to kill time. (Did you realize that there actually IS a LogicPuzzles.com? Wacky.)

So, fwaba!

― David Raposa, Friday, 13 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Och, Ally, you taking me to task for out and out insulting people on threads we don't like the content of? Hello, Pot, my name is kettle, you're looking a bit dark today. ;-)

I make no bones about the fact that my supposed intelligence has rendered me dumb and socially incompetant and misanthropic.

― masonic boom, Friday, 13 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The old logic problems magazine with the chad-esque fella with the big nose sucking on a pencil - that went on every holiday I did. So if Jim has a red hat but lives in a blue narrowboat why is his a cultural anachronism in the 21st century?

― Pete, Friday, 13 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

There's a difference between calling people idiots and morons for having fun with a puzzle or some ludicrious online IQ test like 5 different times and calling people perverts for rambling on loony- like about oral sex. :P

I just don't think you should let it get to you that much, that's all I'm saying. It was a long time ago now, which doesn't make it not happen but should make it a bit better I think.

― Ally, Friday, 13 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Problem is with simple logic problems like the one above is that they're easily susceptible to algorithmic solution. You just plug in the starting conditions, go through the steps, and voila: the solution. And as Sterling pointed out they only take a few lines of trivial prolog to solve using a computer. Therefore they are deadly dull and pretty poor measures of intelligence.

― Richard Tunnicliffe, Friday, 13 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

What does algorhytmic solution mean? I have no idea.

― Ally, Friday, 13 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

You know, it's not really that logical. It doesn't say that anyone actually owns the fish, therefore we're reaching the German solely by process of elimination. He could own an aardvark, or a marsupial, or something non-fish. There is no prima facie evidence to suggest he owns a fish at all.

― Paul Strange, Friday, 13 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Thanks for your answers (add one to my stats account, please!)

― james e l, Friday, 13 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

If it weren't for the fact that don't have anything else to do, I would have given up pretty quick, but thanks for hwlping me kill 20 minutes on a Friday afternoon (Friday the 13th, no less). It ins't that 98% couldn't figure it out, it is that they don't have the patience to sit there long enough (or the boredom for that matter).

I think these 5 should get together with some of the Swede's beer invite some lady-friends from 5 different countries and have a 5-day party with......... just leave the animals out of it, O.K..

― tOM p, Friday, 13 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I bought one of those logicpuzzles magazines as a kid. I got halfway through and realized THEY WERE ALL THE SAME!

― Sterling Clover, Friday, 13 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

two months pass...

*Norwegian - cats - yellow - Dunhill - water

*Dane - horses - blue - Blends - Tea

*Brit - birds - red - Pall Mall - milk

*German - - green - Prince - coffee

*Swede - dog - white - Blue Master - beer

― Tony Stone, Thursday, 13 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Took me an hour and a half to solve it. *sigh* Its German. How long does it take you guys to solve it?

― FA, Friday, 14 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

It took me five seconds to solve it by looking down the list of other people's answers.

― Tom, Friday, 14 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

about 15 min for me. but it's all a waste of time. like someone said before, it's algorithmic so i don't think it's a good way of measuring intelligence. you could write a computer program to do it.

― ernest, Friday, 14 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

It's probably been forty minutes to an hour since I copied it to notepad and started to work on it, but I spent most of that time checking message boards, so...ten to twenty, I'd say. That was quite easy because i could do it and I just give up on most logic problems because I REALLY DON'T CARE and don't want to waste my time; I had distractions though.

And my school will have none of yr gifted and talented grade skipping. They WILL put you in class with everyone of every level and it WILL teach you patience and them the material! I'll give them credit, if you're not ambitious it's good.

― maria, Friday, 14 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Tom's answer proves by science that he is the smartest guy on the board.

― Dan Perry, Friday, 14 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

It also proves that he lacks pride and took the easy way out. (hey, wait a minute...)

― Maria, Friday, 14 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

its a fairly easy question... i wonder why 98% cant get it ? oh maybe Einstein refers to the ppl back in those days... you know... not many can read... and not to mention if you take the whole world into account. very few in places like Asia or Africa knows English! oh.. and theres those who cant be bothered to attempt it... that should make up 98%

― Terence, Monday, 17 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

two months pass...

I just think it's too late, they are all dead from a lung cancer

― , Tuesday, 27 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

two months pass...

The Germans have the fish......IT took me like 5 hours to figure it out...but i finally got it. Ya, im slow but im only 13

― Christopher John Sy, Wednesday, 20 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

one month passes...

The German owns the fish. It took me about 50mins to figure it out, but I'm only 17 and made a stupid mistake (thus forcing me to start over)

― Marion M., Saturday, 23 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

ask Albert Einstein if quantum mechanics is logical, or if his hamous EPR paradox can be explained with the same logic required to solve this riddle.

― paul barclay, Saturday, 23 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

stupid mistake = not looking at the rest of the thread?

(How do you google to this thread)

― Graham, Saturday, 23 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Man!!!! Took me like an hour to work it out! And the person who sent it to me didnt put the answer!!! So i ended up having to ask a friend to check it up!!!!!! The answer is the German.

― Vivian Tang, Tuesday, 26 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

via google

― mark s, Tuesday, 26 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

two months pass...

My sister and I got it in email and tried doing this together, and we did it visually instead of trying to work it out in our heads. It took us about 40 mins tops, but we got it. When we tried to verify it by looking in the email, the person had forgotten to include the answer. We just did a quick Google to check on the answer and ran across this board. :D

We didn't know so many people had made such a big deal out of it, and quite frankly we were able to solve it by both logic and chance. :D

― Noelle & Marielle De Guzman, Thursday, 6 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

A single, tedious puzzle like this is an enormously worse test of IQ than the usual kind of IQ tests. And I'll tell you how bad they are: the difference between what is apparently the national average and the IQ of a genius (according to Mensa and many other sources which buy into their numbers) is something not much over 40 points. I have had five (possibly six, I don't really remember) IQ tests. They vary by 47 points. How can you have any faith in that?*

And that's before we start to discuss their cultural bias and occasional side-shift into general knowledge (the BBC were very bad in that regard recently).

*If you're interested: 163 and 210 were the extremes.

― Martin Skidmore, Thursday, 6 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

two weeks pass...

Took 15 minutes late in the first half-early second half of Argentina- England World Cup match (come on lions!). I don't have an IQ of 180 (probably) but I'm sure the point is not finding out it's the German (duh) but finding an elegant solution. The path to the solution is more important than the pathetic truth that 98% CAN solve it. Anyone can write up two-three tables on a handkerchief while drinking his beer and cheering for England. But what point is thee in this?

― Sarandos Kaptanis, Friday, 21 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Could the board moderator please change the title of this to "The Albert Heinstein Riddle: Easy or Waste of Time?"...as you know, we've been getting his name wrong for years.

― jel --, Friday, 21 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

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