Einstein made this puzzle up, and said that 98% of the world would not be able to solve it. Give it a go.
There are 5 houses in 5 different colors in a row. In each house lives a person with a different nationality. The 5 owners drink a certain type of beverage, smoke a certain brand of cigar, and keep a certain pet. No owners have the same pet, smoke the same brand of cigar, or drink the same beverage. Other facts:
The Brit lives in the red house.
The Swede keeps dogs as pets.
The Dane drinks tea.
The green house is on the immediate left of the white house.
The green house’s owner drinks coffee.
The owner who smokes Pall Mall rears birds.
The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill.
The owner living in the center house drinks milk.
The Norwegian lives in the first house.
The owner who smokes Blends lives next to the one who keeps cats.
The owner who keeps the horse lives next to the one who smokes Dunhill.
The owner who smokes Bluemasters drinks beer.
The German smokes Prince.
The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
The owner who smokes Blends lives next to the one who drinks water.
It took me a while to remember which kind of scheme allowed me to represent a «next to» relation easily. After I figured how to rewrite the statements, it took me only five minutes to solve the puzzle.
I remembered something about this earlier today so I looked it up and figured it out. I don’t think it’s that 98% of people are incapable of doing it. I think it’s that 98% of people give up. Took me about 15 minutes.
Here’s another one: Take a 5x5 chess board, 5 queens, and three pawns, and arrange them all on the board so none of the pawns can be taken.
My mom and I spent a half-hour trying to figure out the chess one, and although my mom gave up eventually, I kept at it for 5 more minutes and I got it.
BTW, we should probably stop talking in spoiler messages, because the mods will be after us.