Saturday, October 4, 2014

Zebra Puzzle.

Puzzle:
  1. There are five houses.
  2. The Englishman lives in the red house.
  3. The Spaniard owns the dog.
  4. Coffee is drunk in the green house.
  5. The Ukrainian drinks tea.
  6. The green house is immediately to the right of the ivory house.
  7. The Old Gold smoker owns snails.
  8. Kools are smoked in the yellow house.
  9. Milk is drunk in the middle house.
  10. The Norwegian lives in the first house.
  11. The man who smokes Chesterfields lives in the house next to the man with the fox.
  12. Kools are smoked in the house next to the house where the horse is kept.
  13. The Lucky Strike smoker drinks orange juice.
  14. The Japanese smokes Parliaments.
  15. The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
Now, who drinks water? Who owns the zebra?
In the interest of clarity, it must be added that each of the five houses is painted a different color, and their inhabitants are of different  national extractions, own different pets, drink different beverages and smoke different brands of American cigarets [sic]. One other thing: in statement 6, right means your right.
Courtesy:Wiki Life InternationalDecember 17, 1962
Note: Don't forget to visit us again. Answer to the puzzle will be posted tomorrow with winner's name. You can provide your answer in comments.
Solution:

House54321
ColorIvoryGreenRedBlueYellow
NationalitySpaniardJapaneseEnglishmanUkrainianNorwegian
DrinkOrange juiceCoffeeMilkTeaWater
SmokeLucky StrikeParliamentOld GoldChesterfieldKools
PetDogZebraSnailsHorseFox

Step 1

We are told the Norwegian lives in the first house (10). We count from left to right.
From (10) and (15), the second house is blue. What color is the first house? Not green or ivory, because they must be next to each other (6 and the second house is blue). Not red, because the Englishman lives there (2). Therefore the first house is yellow.
It follows that Kools are smoked in the first house (8) and the Horse is kept in the second house (12).
So what is drunk by the Norwegian in the first, yellow, Kools-filled house? Not tea since the Ukrainian drinks that (5). Not coffee since that is drunk in the green house (4). Not milk since that is drunk in the third house (9). Not orange juice since the drinker of orange juice smokes Lucky Strikes (13). Therefore it is water (the missing beverage) that is drunk by the Norwegian.
Step 2
Who can live in the second, the blue, house? First, we note that the Japanese cannot drink water (as we deduced the Norwegian drinks this), nor tea (5) nor orange juice (13), as he does not smoke Lucky Strike. So, the Japanese drinks either coffee (4) or milk (9), which also means he is either in the green house or in the middle house - and we know the second house (the blue one) is neither green nor in the middle. So, the Japanese cannot reside in the blue house, which leaves us only with the Ukrainian.
So what does the Ukrainian smoke? It cannot be Kool (8 taken by Norwegian), nor Old Gold (7 we now know the Ukrainian owns the horse), nor Lucky Strike (13, 5 the Ukrainian drinks tea), nor Parliaments (14). Thus he smokes Chesterfields.
Step 3
We can now assign the remaining 2 cigarette brands to the respective nationality: Since Old Gold is smoked by the snails owner (7), the Spaniard cannot smoke the brand (3 he owns a dog). Thus the English smokes Old Gold (and owns snails) and the Spaniard smokes Lucky Strike.
Step 4
We deduced in the previous step that the Spaniard smokes Lucky Strike, which implies he drinks orange juice (13). With this, the only unassigned drinks left are coffee and milk. Since the Englishman lives in the red house (2), he cannot be the one drinking coffee in the green house (4). Thus, the Englishman drinks milk in the middle house (9), which is red (2). And so, the Japanese drinks coffee in the green house (4).
Now we assigned all the drinks, and we also can assign the missing houses. We just concluded that the Englishman lives in the middle, red house and the Japanese in the green house. The ivory house is the only one left unassigned, and it must be the Spaniard's. Furthermore, since the green house is to the right of the ivory house (6) it is the last (i.e. rightmost) house, and we now have the order of houses (from left to right): yellow, blue, red, ivory, green.
Step 5
What is left to do is to assign the remaining 2 animals (fox, zebra) to their respective owners (Norwegian, Japanese) (we deduced in step 2 that the Ukrainian owns the horse, and instep 3 that the Englishman owns snails, and we already know that the Spaniard owns a dog (3)).
We know that the "man who smokes Chesterfields lives in the house next to the man with the fox" (11). The Ukrainian smokes Chesterfields and is neighbors with the Norwegian, but not with the Japanese. Thus, the Norwegian owns the fox and the Japanese owns the zebra.

Winner:

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