Riddle

Einstein wrote this riddle last century and said that 98% of the world’s population would not be able to solve it.

• There are 5 houses that are each a different colour.
• There is a person of a different nationality in each house.
• The 5 owners drink a certain drink. They each smoke a certain brand of cigarettes and also have a certain pet. No owner has the same pet, smokes the same brand of cigarettes nor drinks the same drink.
• The question is. “Who has the fish?”

CLUES

1. The British man lives in the red house.
2. The Swedish man has a dog for a pet.
3. The Danish man drinks tea.
4. The green house is to the left of the white house.
5. The owner of the green house drinks coffee.
6. The person that smokes Pall Mall has a bird.
7. The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill.
8. The person that lives in the middle house drinks milk.
9. The Norwegian lives in the first house.
10. The person that smokes Blend, lives next to the one that has a cat.
11. The person that has a horse lives next to the one that smokes Dunhill.
12. The one that smokes Bluemaster drinks beer.
13. The German smokes Prince.
14. The Norwegian lives next to a blue house.
15. The person that smokes Blend, has a neighbour that drinks water


More deduction than a riddle but takes some time

I'm pretty sure it's the German because from what I worked out the Norwegian man had the cat, the Danish man had the horse, the British man had the bird and the Swedish man had the dog.

There's a man in a room with no windows and a locked door. In the room are 3 items:
1) a piano
2) a plate which has been broken in two
3) a baseball bat.
Using only these items, there are three ways the man can escape. What are they?

Posted from TSR Mobile

A prison contains twenty inmates and a warden. The warden has built a room containing two pointless levers, each of which can be either in the up position or the down position, but no other state. The warden tells the inmates that he will select a random inmate to visit the room, and allow them to change the position of one or both of the levers - and indeed, when they do so, they must change the state of at least one lever. He will continue to select inmates in this manner after random time intervals indefinitely. At any time, an inmate may approach the warden and tell him that all inmates have visited the room at least once. If the inmate is correct, they all go free; if he is wrong, they are all summarily executed. He allows the inmates to strategise together before he begins, but he doesn't tell them the original position of the levers or which inmate he will select first. The inmates devise a plan to escape as soon as possible without risking their lives. What is their plan?

This is quite challenging but i'll try figuring it out.

A prison contains twenty inmates and a warden. The warden has built a room containing two pointless levers, each of which can be either in the up position or the down position, but no other state. The warden tells the inmates that he will select a random inmate to visit the room, and allow them to change the position of one or both of the levers - and indeed, when they do so, they must change the state of at least one lever. He will continue to select inmates in this manner after random time intervals indefinitely. At any time, an inmate may approach the warden and tell him that all inmates have visited the room at least once. If the inmate is correct, they all go free; if he is wrong, they are all summarily executed. He allows the inmates to strategise together before he begins, but he doesn't tell them the original position of the levers or which inmate he will select first. The inmates devise a plan to escape as soon as possible without risking their lives. What is their plan?

A prison contains twenty inmates and a warden. The warden has built a room containing two pointless levers, each of which can be either in the up position or the down position, but no other state. The warden tells the inmates that he will select a random inmate to visit the room, and allow them to change the position of one or both of the levers - and indeed, when they do so, they must change the state of at least one lever. He will continue to select inmates in this manner after random time intervals indefinitely. At any time, an inmate may approach the warden and tell him that all inmates have visited the room at least once. If the inmate is correct, they all go free; if he is wrong, they are all summarily executed. He allows the inmates to strategise together before he begins, but he doesn't tell them the original position of the levers or which inmate he will select first. The inmates devise a plan to escape as soon as possible without risking their lives. What is their plan?

Keep a log of who's done the lever thing and once they've all done it....

Break the lever off and use as a weapon?

Couple of possibilities

Posted from TSR Mobile

Is it something along the line of them appointing a 'scorekeeper' and the other 19 prisoners as transmitters?

Einstein wrote this riddle last century and said that 98% of the world’s population would not be able to solve it.

• There are 5 houses that are each a different colour.
• There is a person of a different nationality in each house.
• The 5 owners drink a certain drink. They each smoke a certain brand of cigarettes and also have a certain pet. No owner has the same pet, smokes the same brand of cigarettes nor drinks the same drink.
• The question is. “Who has the fish?”

CLUES

1. The British man lives in the red house.
2. The Swedish man has a dog for a pet.
3. The Danish man drinks tea.
4. The green house is to the left of the white house.
5. The owner of the green house drinks coffee.
6. The person that smokes Pall Mall has a bird.
7. The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill.
8. The person that lives in the middle house drinks milk.
9. The Norwegian lives in the first house.
10. The person that smokes Blend, lives next to the one that has a cat.
11. The person that has a horse lives next to the one that smokes Dunhill.
12. The one that smokes Bluemaster drinks beer.
13. The German smokes Prince.
14. The Norwegian lives next to a blue house.
15. The person that smokes Blend, has a neighbour that drinks water


More deduction than a riddle but takes some time

I think you may be on the right track.

Use only one of the levers as an indicator. If a prisoner enters a room for the first time, they must place the lever up, and leave it that way. If they have been here more than once, they must place the lever down.

The first person to see the lever in an upwards position 19 times must tell the warden. It could be any of them that tells the warden, as long as they have seen the lever in an upwards position 19 times.

yay! i've solved this one before but in the context of switches rather than levers. i know the main concept of how it works but the levers are confusing lol

Use only one of the levers as an indicator. If a prisoner enters a room for the first time, they must place the lever up, and leave it that way. If they have been here more than once, they must place the lever down.

The first person to see the lever in an upwards position 19 times must tell the warden. It could be any of them that tells the warden, as long as they have seen the lever in an upwards position 19 times.
Since it is neccessary for them to change the state of one of the levers, they can designate one of the levers as a dummy. So that if they don't want to change the state of the indicator lever, they can simply change the state of the dummy lever.

You're very close, but 19 times doesn't seem like enough. Wouldn't there be a possibility that one person was left out?

I'm not clear on the distinction between a switch and a lever. To be honest, I think they may be the same thing. If you do get there, would you mind spoilering your solution so that other people can still try and solve it?

In this example there are 23 people altogether

Yh sure. so i'll do it within the context of a switch.

When a transmitter enter the room for the first time, he will flick switch B ON if he sees its in the OFF position. Alternatively, he will flick switch A on if he sees switch B is in the ON position and then he waits for his next visit. The mission of the transmitter is to find one opportunity to flick switch B to the ON position and after he completes his mission, he will flick switch A for all subsequent visits. so each transmitter's role will be to send a signal to the scorekeeper that he has been to the switch room.

The score keepers role will be to flick off switch B whenever he sees its in the ON position. Each time he slick OFF switch B he will add 1 to his score. When he sees switch B is already OFF, he flicks switch A instead and doesn't add the score. As soon as he gets 22, he reports it to the warden.

lol thats how i think it goes.

Surely having a single scorekeeper would make this task extremely long?

The inmates aren't allowed to interact with each other at all once visits to the room begin. The levers can each only be in the up state or the down state, and sadly this precludes the "forcibly-removed-from-the-wall" state.