The mystery of who lives where. Original text of Einstein's riddle

Albert Einstein is known not only for his research and discoveries, several hundred works on physics and books and articles in the field of journalism, history and philosophy, but also for others interesting facts. Not everyone knows that even before becoming a scientist, he created a most interesting problem. It is called Einstein's riddle and this article is dedicated to it.

Einstein's riddle

There are several opinions about the appearance of Einstein's riddle. According to one, Albert Einstein created it as a child. According to another, he created it later to test the ability of candidates for the position of his assistants to think logically. Also, the authorship of the problem is sometimes attributed to the English writer and scientist Lewis Carroll. But there is no precise evidence of the authorship of either the first or the second. In addition, the condition of the problem, which we will consider below, mentions the brand of American cigarettes “Kool”, which did not yet exist during the lifetime of the alleged authors.

According to some researchers, Einstein said that only 2% of all people can operate in their minds with patterns that are associated with five various signs. For this reason, Einstein's riddle without using paper can only be solved by those who belong to this 2%. In addition, a mental solution is assumed to be the most difficult version of the problem. If you use paper and take notes, then the riddle is noticeably simplified and can be solved quite simply, and its solution will no longer say anything about the abilities of the subject.

So, the task.

Original text of Einstein's riddle

Riddle text:

1. There are five houses on the street.
2. An Englishman lives in a red house.
3. The Spaniard is holding a dog.
4. Ukrainians love tea.
5. House green located immediately to the right of the house white.
6. Smoking Old Gold, breeding snails.
7. In the house yellow lives smoking "Kool".
8. In the house in the center they drink milk.
9. A Norwegian lives in house No. 1.
10. A neighbor of a Chesterfield smoker who keeps a fox in his house.
11. In the house next to the one where the horse is kept, there lives a Kool smoker.
12. Smoking "Lucky Strike", loves Orange juice.
13. The Japanese smokes Parliament.
14. A Norwegian lives in a house located next to his house blue.

Question: Who drinks water and who holds the zebra?

For a more precise understanding, it should be added that all the houses are painted different colors, and all their inhabitants are representatives of different nationalities, they keep different animals, prefer different drinks, and also smoke different brands of cigarettes. And note: when it says right, it means to your right. The original condition, however, does not indicate that the houses are in a row, and there is no information that anyone can drink water or keep a zebra. Those. the premises for solving the riddle can be called implicit (in comparison with other similar logical problems), which significantly complicates the solution.

Solving Einstein's riddle

The steps below to solve the riddle are deductive in nature. And the point of the solution is to try to fit the available data into the table, one after another excluding options that are impossible.

Step #1(points of the riddle text are indicated in brackets)

According to the condition, the Norwegian lives in house No. 1 (10). Where the countdown starts is not important, because... we are not concerned with the direction of numbering of houses, but only with their order. (10) and (15) indicate that house No. 2 is blue. So what color is house number 1? It can be neither green nor white, because... they should be nearby based on the color of house No. 2 and (6). Also, house No. 1 is not red, because... An Englishman lives in red. Accordingly, house No. 1 is yellow.

It follows that in house No. 1 they smoke Kool cigarettes (8), and in house No. 2 there is a horse (12). The Norwegian from yellow house No. 1, who smokes Kool, does not drink tea (5), does not drink coffee (4), does not drink milk (9) and does not drink orange juice (13). It turns out that the Norwegian is the one who drinks the water.

Step #2

What kind of cigarettes do they smoke in blue house No. 2, where there is a horse?

"Kool" is smoked in house No. 1 (8). “Old Gold” is smoked by the one who has snails in the house (7). If, for example, we assume that in house No. 2 they smoke “Lucky Strike”, then it turns out that they also prefer orange juice (13). So who can live in house number 2? Not Norwegian (10), not English (2), not Spanish (3), not Ukrainian (5) and not Japanese (14). But such a situation cannot exist, which means this is not “Lucky Strike”.

If we assume that this is “Parliament”, then it turns out that a Japanese person lives in house No. 2 (14). But what is he drinking? Not tea (5), not coffee (4), not milk (9) and not juice (13). This option cannot exist either, which means it is not “Parliament”. There is only one conclusion: in house No. 2 they smoke Chesterfield.

Who lives in blue house No. 2, smokes Chesterfield and has a horse? He cannot be Norwegian (10), English (2), Spanish (3) or Japanese (14). Accordingly, this is a Ukrainian who drinks tea (5).

Step #3

Considering that Chesterfield is smoked in house No. 2, then from (11) it becomes clear that the fox is either in house No. 1 or in house No. 3. But which one?

To begin with, let's say that the fox is in house number 3. Then what does a man who smokes Old Gold and raises snails drink? Because water and tea are already excluded in the first two steps and it cannot be juice (13) and milk (9), then what remains is coffee, which the resident drinks green house(4). Therefore, if the fox is in house No. 3, then in the green house there lives a person who smokes Old Gold, breeds snails and drinking coffee. Who is he? This is not Norwegian (10), not Ukrainian (5), not English (2), not Japanese (14) and not Spanish (3). This option cannot exist, which means the fox is in house No. 1.

Step #4

Based on all the previous thoughts, it turns out that orange juice and coffee are drunk in the remaining houses No. 5 and No. 4. It doesn’t matter in which or what. Therefore, let’s just call them “house with juice” and “house with coffee”.

Where does the man who smokes Old Gold and breeds snails live? Not in the house with juice, because... there lives someone who smokes Lucky Strike (13). Let's say he lives in a house with coffee. It turns out that a person who smokes Old Gold, breeds snails and drinks coffee lives in a green house (4). And this, again, cannot be (we are guided by the reasoning from step No. 3). It turns out that the man who smokes Old Gold and breeds snails lives in house No. 3.

From all this it follows that a person who smokes Parliament lives in a green house where they love coffee. And this is Japanese (14). Then it turns out that a person smoking Lucky Strike, drinking orange juice and holding a dog is a Spaniard. Thinking in the same way, we find that the Englishman should live in house No. 3, which should be red. Excluding everything else, we come to the conclusion that the Spaniard lives in a white house.

Obviously, the zebra is in the Japanese man's house.

The answer to Einstein's riddle

But there is one thing to consider here: in the solution we presented, it was assumed that house No. 1 is on the far left. If we imagine that house No. 1 is on the far right, then the situation will change a little, but the answer will be the same:

This is Einstein's riddle and the principles for solving it. It looks, by and large, not very difficult. But keep in mind that we solved the problem in in writing. Surely not everyone can solve it in their minds. Try your luck and try to repeat the solution without using any available means. If you don’t want to solve an already familiar problem, you can rack your brains over a slightly different formulation.

Another version of Einstein's riddle

There are five houses in a row on one street. Each house is a different color. The residents of each house represent different nationalities, smoke different cigarettes, drink different drinks and keep different pets. Plus to this:

1. A Norwegian lives in house No. 1.
2. An Englishman lives in a red house.
3. The green house stands to the left of the white house, next to it.
4. The Dane loves tea.
5. The Marlboro smoker lives next to someone who keeps cats.
6. The tenant of the yellow house smokes Dunhill.
7. The German smokes Rothmans.
8. A resident of the central house drinks milk.
9. A neighbor smoking Marlboro drinks water.
10. The Pall Mall smoker raises birds.
11. The Swede keeps dogs.
12. A Norwegian lives in a house next to the blue house.
13. The one who keeps horses lives in a blue house.
14. Smoking Winfield, drinking beer.
15. They drink coffee in a green house.

Question: Which of the residents breeds fish?

Good luck in solving this problem!

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Not everyone knows, but even before becoming a great scientist, Einstein came up with one unusual problem. He believed that 98% of the inhabitants of the Earth are not able to solve it in their heads. Are you one of the remaining top 2%?

website invites you to prove this and solve Einstein's famous problem.

Condition

5 different people at 5 different houses different colors love 5 different dishes, contain 5 different types animals drink 5 different types of drinks. Question: who raises the fish?

Try solving this problem in your head or on a piece of paper by drawing a small sign. Scroll down when you are ready to test yourself and find out the answer.

Solution

From the clues we know that Norwegian lives in the first house, next to the blue house. A in a blue house lives a man who has a horse. The one who lives in the center, drinking milk.

A Norwegian cannot live in a red or blue house; an Englishman and the one who has a horse live there. He also cannot live in white, since the green house is located to the left of the white one, and The Norwegian's house is the one on the left. Green is also not for him, since it is on the right White House, and to the right of the Norwegian there should be blue. So he lives in yellow and loves to eat pizza.

Green is to the left of white, which means it is number 4. White - 5, and red - 3. An Englishman lives here. Coffee is drunk in the 4th house.

It is said that a German loves donuts, which means he does not eat rice and does not drink beer. He also does not drink milk or tea; the English and the French do. This means the German drinks water or coffee.

A Norwegian cannot drink beer (because he eats other food), coffee (he does not live in a green house), tea (not a Frenchman). This means that a Norwegian drinks water, and a German drinks coffee, and lives in a green house. And since a Norwegian drinks water from us, then his neighbor loves apples (from the hints).

Since a Swede has a dog, he cannot live in the second house (there is a horse), which means the Swede lives in the fifth house (white). And in the second house there lives a Frenchman who drinks tea.

If a cheese lover raises birds, then he is not a Swede, that means he is an Englishman. Therefore, the Swede eats rice and drinks beer.

And now we have last clue: the one who eats apples lives next to the one who has a cat. The Frenchman eats apples (second home). To his right is an Englishman, who has birds, which means the second neighbor is French (on the left), and the Norwegian has a cat.

And finally, the fish are raised by a German.

Einstein's riddle– famous , which was compiled Albert Einstein. By the way, perhaps this is not so, but it is not so important to us who composed this riddle, only the riddle itself and the verification of our logical abilities. Still, if we stick to the sources that claim that it was compiled by Einstein, then according to them the riddle was invented by him as a child. Many claim that he composed this puzzle to select candidates for positions that require good logical thinking.

Many of us have heard this phrase about Einstein's riddle: “Only 2% of people can solve it”. This is not entirely true, or rather this expression needs to be supplemented. Maybe, in fact, only a fiftieth of the population will be able to solve it, but without using paper and pen (or things that can replace them). In fact, for a clean solution to this problem, we should only have at our disposal our memory and logic. If you use any additional ways memorization (pen, paper), then the riddle loses the lion’s share of complexity - but for some reason I don’t want to rack my brain, so when I first read this riddle I immediately grabbed the piece of paper)

Single version Einstein's riddles not now, there are many variations of it. I will give an example of the most famous version Einstein's riddles.

Conditions of the Einstein Riddle.

• On the street - five houses.
• At every home - your color.
• In every house - 1 person lives.
• Every person has own nationality.
• Everyone prefers to smoke a unique brand of cigarettes, drink your own drink and keep animals.

Well, we're done with the introduction - now let's move on to the tips (well, it's just amazing how simple the tips are)

1. Norwegian lives in first home.
2. Englishman lives in red home.
3. Green the house is to the left of white, next to him.
4. Dane drinks tea.
5. The one who smokes Marlboro, lives next to someone who grows cats.
6. The one who lives in yellow at home, smoking Dunhill.
7. German smokes Rothmans.
8. The one who lives in the center, drinks milk.
9. Neighbour someone who smokes Marlboro, drinks water.
10. The one who smokes Pall Mall, grows birds.
11. Swede grows dogs.
12. Norwegian lives near With blue home.
13. The one who grows horses, lives in blue home.
14. The one who smokes Winfield, drinks beer.
15. IN green drinking at home coffee.

The question is for Einstein's riddle sounds as follows: Who breeds fish? Ha! You might think, but no; It's not that simple. While we are determining who breeds fish we almost learn the biography of each participant in the puzzle, and most last action we will still be able to determine who this is after all fish lover. (no, they would have asked the question: in which house does the Norwegian live? (:)

Well? gathered your will into a fist, grabbed a pen with a piece of paper (or maybe you can try it in your head?) and forward: for the answer to Einstein's riddle.

Yuri Okunev School

Hello friends. Yuri Okunev is with you. The Soviet pioneers were dealt with. Today let's set the bar higher. Let's solve Einstein's riddle.

Einstein's riddle - famous logic problem, whose authorship is attributed to Albert Einstein.

It is believed that this puzzle was created by Albert Einstein during his childhood. There is also an opinion that it was used by Einstein to test candidate assistants for logical thinking ability.

Some attribute to Einstein a reasoning in which he claims that only two percent of the world's population is able to mentally operate with patterns associated with five signs at once. As a particular consequence of this, the above puzzle can be solved without the use of paper only by those who belong to these two percent. However, there is no documented evidence that Einstein ever made such a claim.

In its most difficult version, the problem involves solving it in your head, without using any notes or means of storing information. Without this, the puzzle noticeably loses in complexity, since it can be solved by simply drawing up a table with the exclusion of obviously contradictory options - and therefore says little about the abilities of the subject."

5 different people in 5 different houses of different colors, smoking 5 different brands of cigarettes, raising 5 different types of animals, drinking 5 different types of drinks.

Question: who raises the fish?

Tips:

• The Norwegian lives in the first house.
• The Englishman lives in a red house.
• The green house is located to the left of the white one.
• The Dane drinks tea.
• The one who smokes Rothmans lives next to the one who
• raises cats.
• The one who lives in the yellow house smokes Dunhill.
• The German smokes Marlboro.
• The one who lives in the center drinks milk.
• The neighbor of the one who smokes Rothmans drinks water.
• Anyone who smokes Pall Mall raises birds.
• The Swede raises dogs.
• A Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
• The one who raises horses lives in a blue house.
• Anyone who smokes Philip Morris drinks beer.
• They drink coffee in the green house.

Try to guess who raises the fish?