The Einstein Puzzle

  Supposedly, Albert Einstein wrote this riddle, and said 98% of the world could not solve it.

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There are 5 houses in 5 different colors.  In each house lives a man with a different nationality.  The 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 beverage.

The question is: "Who owns the fish?"

Hints:

• The Brit lives in the 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's owner drinks coffee.
• The person who smokes Pall Mall rears birds.
• The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill.
• The man living in the center house drinks milk.
• The Norwegian lives in the first house.
• The man who smokes Blends lives next to the one who keeps cats.
• The man who keeps the horse lives next to the man who smokes Dunhill.
• The owner who smokes Bluemasters drinks beer.
• The German smokes Prince.
• The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
• The man who smokes Blends has a neighbor who drinks water.

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In order to solve the puzzle I had to make some assumptions:

1. The owner is the resident of each house.
2. One of the residents owns the fish.
3. The term neighbor in the last hint refers only to a directly adjacent neighbor.
4. The houses are on the same side of the street.
5. They are next to each other, and are ordered from left to right as you face them rather than standing in front of a house facing the street (i.e. facing the same direction as the house).

This illustration demonstrates the last few assumptions.

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I was then able to come up with a solution.

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Dennis McCarthy

Last Updated 2001 Jun 22
url http://www.mindspring.com/~mccarthys/puzzle1.htm