Chapter 10: Brainteasers 379
- The man who lives in the house that is in the middle
drinks milk. - The Norwegian lives in the first house.
- The man who smokes Blends lives next to the one
who has cats. - The man who raises horses lives next to the one who
smokes Dunhill. - The man who smokes Bluemaster drinks beer.
- The German smokes Prince.
- The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
- The man who smokes Blends is neighbour of the one
who drinks water.
Question: Who has the fish?
(Thanks to NoDoubts.)
Solution
This was a question posed by Einstein who said that
98% of people can’t solve it. More likely 98% of people
can’t be bothered. And in these days of Su Doku, the
percentage of people who can solve it will be higher.
Oh, and the answer is the German.
(Historical note: Smoking was something that the poor
and the uneducated used to do. For an explanation of
the process, see Newhart, R. ‘Introducing tobacco to civ-
ilization’. ‘‘What you got for us this time, Walt...you got
another winner for us? Tob-acco...er, what’s tob-acco,
Walt? It’s a kind of leaf, huh...and you bought eighty
tonnes of it?!!...Let me get this straight, Walt...you’ve
bought eighty tonnes of leaves?...Thismaycomeasa
kind of a surprise to you Walt but...come fall in Eng-
land, we’re kinda upto our...It isn’t that kind of leaf,
huh?...Oh!, what kind is it then...some special kind
of food?...not exactly?...Oh, it has a lot of different
uses...Like...what are some of the uses, Walt?...Are
you saying ‘snuff’, Walt?...What’s snuff?...You take a