Einstein’s 5 houses riddle, do you dare?

They call it Einstein’s 5 Houses Riddle.. It has been traveling around the world for several years and challenging thousands of curious minds under the classic message of being the enigma that only 2% of the population can solve. These undoubtedly seem to be sufficient ingredients to attract our attention and test intellectual agility and ingenuity in this type of logic and deduction games.

Actually, There is no record that Albert Einstein ever devised this or any other riddle.. We can also find this same deductive proposal under the authorship of Lewis Carroll. The truth is that this suggestive exercise is known as zebra puzzle and its first appearance was in a newspaper (1962).

However, the peak of its popularity came in 2004 when media such as Guardian and especially, institutions such as Stanford University will launch this challenge to the general public.

They did it under the tempting title of Einstein’s riddle, the one that almost no one can solve. The proposal was undoubtedly tempting enough to become that viral phenomenon that continues year after year and always attracts our attention.

Let’s see what it consists of.

The riddle of Einstein’s 5 houses: some very particular tenants

The riddle of Einstein’s 5 houses starts from a unique scenario. Let’s visualize for a moment, a street where five facades stand like townhouses, each one of a different color.

Each of these houses belongs to a series of very unique owners. They are characters with a very particular lifestyle. Each of them shares their home with a pet and they are very given to those highly undesirable vices such as drinking and tobacco.

Each one consumes a type of brand and also has a pet. This is therefore what we know about these five characters in our enigma:

Clues that we must take into account

There are 5 houses and each one is a color.We have a British man living in the red house. The Swedish neighbor has a pet dog.The Norwegian lives in the first house.We know that the Dane drinks tea. The owner of the green house drinks coffee. The German smokes a brand of tobacco called Prince.The man who lives in the house in the center drinks milk.The neighbor who smokes Blends lives next to the one who has a cat. The green house is to the left of the white one.The neighbor who smokes Pall Mall raises birds.The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill. The Norwegian lives next to the blue house. The man who has a horse lives next to the one who smokes Dunhill.The owner who smokes Bluemaster drinks beer.The neighbor who smokes Blends lives next door to the one who drinks water.

What is the question in Einstein’s 5 houses riddle?

The question that this curious person raises is the following: Would you be able to find out which neighbor has a pet fish?

Type of reasoning and mental approach that we must apply in this enigma

The most common thing that is usually done when trying to solve the puzzle of Einstein’s 5 houses is to read the clues that they suggest many times. Now, no matter how much reading we found the answer. It takes planning and, above all, knowing what kind of mental approach we should use to find the answer..

First of all, we can use lateral thinking. We know its possibilities, we also understand the usefulness of applying a more free, original and challenging approach. However, In this case, as in many everyday challenges, we must use deductive logical reasoning. Let’s see why.

Keys to deductive reasoning

Logical-deductive reasoning helps us move from one piece of information to the next, always starting from some clues.of related statements that, in addition, are always true and reliable.

By analyzing each core of information, we can reach a conclusion. This is also a process that always goes from “top to bottom”, that is, it goes from the general to the particular.

Deductive reasoning, furthermore, is propositional. We must calmly and objectively analyze each premise because each of them has a direct relationship with the following ones that we must deduce.We can use logical formulasbased for example on the denials (if A lives in the red house, B will not live in it), also in premises conditionals (If C lives in the green house and smokes this brand of tobacco, E will live in the blue house and drink such a drink.)To apply deductive reasoning we can use diagrams, diagrams or tables.. In the case of Einstein’s 5 houses puzzle, the best thing to do is to use the following tool: a simple table to organize each data. With it, it will be very easy to classify the information to make our own deductions.

What is the solution to the riddle of the 5 houses or the Zebra-Puzzle?

To solve this logical exercise, as we have pointed out, it is enough to fill in each box with the information provided to us.

By doing so we will obtain each piece of information in a simple way to finally deduce that It is the owner of the green house who has a pet fish. As we see, it is an original and appropriate proposal to challenge our ingenuity, testing those cognitive processes that must be exercised daily.

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