Zebra Puzzle

4 shiney stars

This was supposedly created by Einstein, and some claim only 2% of the world can solve it.
 

There are 5 houses each with a different color. Their owners, each with a unique heritage, drinks a certain type of beverage, smokes a certain brand of cigarette, and keep a certain variety of pet. None of the owners have the same pet, smoke the same brand of cigarette or drink the same beverage.

Clues:

  • The Brit lives in the red house.
  • The Swede keeps dogs as pets.
  • The Dane drinks tea.
  • The green house is just to the left of the white house.
  • The green house's owner drinks coffee.
  • The person who smokes Pall Malls raises 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 a horse lives next to the man who smokes Dunhill.
  • The owner who smokes Bluemasters also 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.

 Who owns the fish?

 




Click here for answer

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Answer

The German



Difficulty
  • Hard
Type
  • Logic
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Comments

Looks like the Norwegian Has fish as a pet.
- Timothy (31 May 2008)

The German... He smokes Prince, drinks coffee, lives in green house.
- st (23 Oct 2008)

I say it is the German. He smokes Prince, lives in the green house, drinks coffee, his house is 4th and has the fish as a pet.
- jan (3 Dec 2008)

I agree with Jan...here are my final results:

1st
norwegian
color = yellow
drink = water
cig = dunhill
pet = cats

2nd
dane
color = blue
drink = tea
cig = blends
pet = horse

3rd
brit
color = red
drink = milk
cig = pall mall
pet = birds

4th
german
color = green
drink = coffee
cig = prince
pet = fish

5th
swede
color = white
drink = beer
cig = bluemasters
pet = dogs
- Louis (9 Dec 2008)

Exact same results as Louis. Took me about an hour scribbling through my notes to solve the puzzle.
- Richelle (23 May 2009)

22 Minutes, exact same results
- Tyler (18 Jun 2009)

gosh- am impressed- i got all the same answers without looking at the comments below. Took me 20 minutes though! Im very impressed with myself!
- helen (5 Oct 2009)

I did something like this (Artemis Fowl version :) (fangathering.com)). It said it was a version of Einsten's Zebra puzzle so I did the real one, and it was just as easy! BTW I'm 12 years old. I finished both in about half-an-hour
- Jgal (16 Jan 2010)

I'm 13 and I was taught how to work through this with several other similar puzzles- I find the best way is to draw up a grid, and put dots on whats confirmed, etc.
- kate (27 Jan 2010)

The German can live in 5th house from the right.
- Erfahrungssatz (3 Mar 2010)

I got the same results as as Jan... :)
Yayyy!
Omg my tutor gave me this question in like year 3...
I didn't even bother trying to solve it...
I'm so glad I managed to solve it now. :)
- Kevin (11 Mar 2010)

12 yrs old, 20 min
- dylan t (13 Mar 2010)

No, he can't. Early in the solution process, it's clear that the fifth house is the only one with both the drink and cigarette brand unknown. This means that it fits the "Beer and Bluemasters" clue, which the German clearly does not.
- Brian (15 Mar 2010)

It depends on how you interpret (The green house is just to the left of the white house) if you think of that as your left while facing the house then the German is 4th but if you think of it as the actual left side of the house then the German is 5th but that part really is not important because either way you still get the same result for the fish which is what you are trying to figure out.
- Christifer (17 Mar 2010)

Well I agree with Christifer. You could be facing the road in the doorway or facing the house so The Green house could be 4th or 5th heres what i got:
1st
norwegian
color = yellow
drink = water
cig = dunhill
pet = cats

2nd
dane
color = blue
drink = tea
cig = blends
pet = horse

3rd
brit
color = red
drink = milk
cig = pall mall
pet = birds

4th
german
color = green
drink = coffee
cig = prince
pet = fish

5th
swede
color = white
drink = beer
cig = bluemasters
pet = dogs
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~or~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1st
norwegian
color = yellow
drink = water
cig = dunhill
pet = cats

2nd
dane
color = blue
drink = tea
cig = blends
pet = horse

3rd
brit
color = red
drink = milk
cig = pall mall
pet = birds
4th
swede
color = white
drink = beer
cig = bluemasters
pet = dogs
5th
german
color = green
drink = coffee
cig = prince
pet = fish
so its very tricky and can not be solved completely. Don't laugh or think i have a big head but I'm 10 :3
- Rianne (31 Jul 2010)

the German owns the fish :The order is as follows:
1)Norwegian-Yellow-cats-Dunhill-Water
2)Dane-Blue house-horse-blend-tea
3)Brit -red house-birds-pall malls-milk
4)German-Green-Fish-Prince-Coffee
5)Swede-white house-dogs-blluemaster-beer

- Janani Nair (10 Jan 2011)

i'm not interested in the answer. i'm interested in the process.
- jillianne (30 Dec 2011)

Im 4 and a half and i did it under a minute!
- Kacie (4 Jan 2012)

how did you get the fish part was it just elimination?

- confused (14 Feb 2012)

None of these is correct, the German actually owns an ostrich, nowhere is it stipulated that any of these five people owns a fish.
- Shay (9 Jan 2013)

We both did it together, and we are twelve years old. It took us about an hour and a half but we finished. The best part was that we enjoyed it. Erika was sleeping over at my house and we were still wide awake at 11:00, so we looked online for things to do and found it. It made a sleepover just a little bit better by working it out together!

- Jenny R. and Erika G. (27 May 2013)

I'm 5 and solved it in 5, kthxbye
- Clark (5 Jul 2013)

Haha, I just red it and guess the answer: the german
I was shocked when I got it correctly :)
- angelli (25 Jul 2013)

30 minutes not bad no peeking i love being intelligent
- jesse garza (28 Oct 2013)

I agree with the guy who found the good solution, I would have probably reached the same conclusion if I had enough time on my hands :)
- Fredo (25 Jan 2014)

the answer is german
- nafisha (28 Feb 2014)

13 years old I did it in 15 minutes:)
- Ellie (5 May 2014)

The Norwegian lives in the first house.
The man living in the house right in the center drinks milk.
Next to the obvious is that the second house is blue. Indeed: The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
and the only house he lives next to is the second one, hence it has to be blue,
Let's working on
colors. The first house can be either green, red, white or yellow
(blue is already assigned to the
second house).
The first house can't be green, since:
The green house is on the left of the white house (next to it). and we know already that the
first house is left of the blue one, not white.
The first house can't be red
either, since, The Brit lives in a red house.
and we know already that Norwegian lives in the first house, not Brit. The first house can't be white as
well, since, The green house is on the left of the white house (next to it).
but there are no houses at all on
the left of the first house.
Hence the only color left for the first house is yellow.
Once the color of the first house
is determined, it is possible to fill the cigar cell for that house. The owner of the yellow house
smokes Dunhill.
From the above we can determine in which house
horses are kept. We know that, The man who keeps horses
lives next to the man who smokes Dunhill.
Hence, horses can be kept only in the second house, since it's the only one, which is next to the
house of the Dunhill smoker.
The third house can be either green, red or white (yellow
and blue are already assigned to the first and the second house).
The third house can't be green, since, The green house owner drinks coffee, and we know already that the owner of the third house drinks
milk, not coffee.
The third house can't be white either, since: The green house is on the left
of the white house (next to it).
and we know already that the blue is left of the third house, not
the green one.
Hence, the only color, which is left for the third house, is red.
Once the color of the third house
is defined, the nationality of its
owner becomes obvious:
1. The Brit lives in a red house.
The remaining two colors are
easy to assign:
4. The green house is on the left
of the white house (next to it).
Only two adjacent houses and
two colors are left and thus, the
fourth house is green and the second house is white.
Once the color of the fourth house is determined, the
beverage choice of its owner becomes obvious, The green house owner drinks coffee.
The second house can be owned only by Dane or German. Swede can't own the second house,
since, The Swede keeps dogs as
pets and we know already that the
owner of the second house keeps horse.
The fourth house can be owned only by German or by Swede.
Dane can't own the fourth house,
since, The Dane drinks tea, and we know already that the owner of the fourth house drinks coffee.
There are no restrictions on the
owner of the fifth house, so he can be either Dane, German or Swede.
The conditions spelled out above
make only three distributions possible.
Let's look closer at the first distribution.
Considering that ''The German smokes Prince. The Dane drinks tea. The owner who smokes
Blue Master drinks beer. one of the owners of the
house 3, 4 or 5 should drink beer.
However, our hypothetical table
shows that none of them can drink beer. So the first of the
three possible distributions leads
to a contradiction, and should
therefor be discarded.
Let's examine in the similar way
Considering that ''The German smokes Prince.
The Dane drinks tea.
The German smokes Prince.
The Swede keeps dogs as pets.
The owner who smokes Blue Master drinks beer.
The man who smokes blend has a neighbor who drinks water.
doesn't look promising so far.
However, it is possible to notice
that Hint 15 can be legitimately
reversed to a more useful statement ''The man who drinks water has a neighbor who smokes blend.
This makes it impossible for the
owner of the fifth house to drink
water (his only neighbor smokes
Prince), leaving him with the only
choice, ''to drink beer.
The owner of the first house is left with the only remaining
possibility ''to drink water.
The cigar preference of the owner of the fifth house becomes now obvious, since ''The owner who smokes Blue Master drinks beer. The owner of the second house has to smoke blend, because ''The man who smokes blend has a neighbor who drinks water.
and first house has no neighbors
except for the second house.
Once the cigar preference of the
owner of the second house is determined, the owner of the
third house have to be a Pall Mall smoker.
The only choice left for him.
The above has the direct consequence that ''The person who smokes Pall Mall rears birds''.
Finally, the owner of the first has to keep cats, since, ''The man who smokes blend
lives next to the one who keeps cats,
and the other neighbor of the
blend smoker rears birds.
This completes the solution,
leaving for the German the only
vacant pet ''a fish''.
- Ayusguy+2348030455749 (28 May 2016)

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