OT - Logic problem

Brijm

Lifetime Supporting Member
Join Date
May 2006
Location
St. Marys, PA
Posts
645
I was reading some of the riddles on a recent thread, and thought that some might enjoy this....

Try solving this logic problem. It's definitely solvable! It was given at The German Institute of Logical Thinking in Berlin, 1981. And 98% FAILED.





The problem has 25 variables and 24 are given values.. so you must solve for the 25th. The problem is HOW?









  • There are five houses.
  • Each house has its own unique color.
  • All house owners are of different nationalities.
  • They all have different pets.
  • They all drink different drinks.
  • They all smoke different cigarettes.
  • The English man lives in the red house.
  • The Swede has a dog.
  • The Dane drinks tea.
  • The green house is on the left side of the white house.
  • They drink coffee in the green house.
  • The man who smokes Pall Mall has birds.
  • In the yellow house they smoke Dunhill.
  • In the middle house they drink milk.
  • The Norwegian lives in the first house.
  • The man who smokes Blend lives in the house next to the house with cats.
  • In the house next to the house where they have a horse, they smoke Dunhill.
  • The man who smokes Blue Master drinks beer.
  • The German smokes Prince.
  • The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
  • They drink water in the house next to the house where they smoke Blend

The question is who owns the Zebra?

-brian
 
Last edited:
[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The last line should read:

They drink water in the house next to where they smoke Blend

Regards,
Felix


[/font]
 
felbie said:
[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The last line should read:

They drink water in the house next to where they smoke Blend

Regards,
Felix


[/font]

Sorry, I was trying to cut and paste, and some things got screwed up... I thinks it's fixed now....
 
Seems to be correct now. I remember doing that quiz in school a few years ago. Needless to say, I did belong to the 98%...

Regards,
Felix
 
The one I originally did claimed that only 1% can solve it. But I question if either statistic is true... In either case, it's fun to try....

Bonus points to the one who makes a PLC program to solve it ;)
 
Peter Nachtwey said:
Are your asking because you don't know or is this like a Friday Math Quiz.
This is easy to solve using brute force methods. A PLC is not the best platform for solving these kinds of problems. Now shall I go on or ruin the fun?

I originally got the answer, it took about a half hour, and I cheated, and used a spreadsheet.
 
I don't think that is cheating.

One can solve this using 5 nested for loops with a bunch of if then statements within the loops. This means there is 5^5 or 3125 combinations. If an if then statement fails then one goes to the next combination. If the combination isn't disqualified by the if then statements then the current combination is the answer or one of them.

I think 5 next loops would cause a PLC to time out. One could execute on combination each scan. If a scan took 10 ms the it still would take only 31.25 seconds to solve the problem. That isn't much fun.

There are more fun ways to challenge a computer.
 

Similar Topics

Hello Dear users, I am writing about a problem that has been bothering me for a few days, i.e. I am trying to establish remote access to the Allen...
Replies
0
Views
105
please help i didn't solve this problem with rslogix. I counted but i am not using timer. How i will fix this situation? Please anyone solve this...
Replies
18
Views
4,994
I have an application using a Powerflex 525 for positioning. I really should be using a servo but the equipment is already in place. I have...
Replies
4
Views
2,055
It would be awesome if someone could help me out with this problem. We can only use basic XIC XIO OTE OTL and OTU instructions. I'm not sure on...
Replies
33
Views
9,165
Hi I need to implementation md5 algorythm to my project. I try to write it in ST and FBD. I have problem with conversion. I try to write...
Replies
4
Views
1,976
Back
Top Bottom