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Can you solve "Einstein’s Riddle"? - Dan Van der Vieren

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    Before he turned physics upside down,
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    a young Albert Einstein supposedly
    showed off his genius
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    by devising a complex riddle involving
    this list of clues.
  • 0:22 - 0:24
    Can you resist tackling a brain teaser
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    written by one of the smartest
    people in history?
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    Let's give it a shot.
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    The world's rarest fish has been
    stolen from the city aquarium.
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    The police have followed the scent to a
    street with five identical looking houses.
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    But they can't search
    all the houses at once,
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    and if they pick the wrong one,
    the thief will know they're on his trail.
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    It's up to you, the city's best detective,
    to solve the case.
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    When you arrive on the scene,
    the police tell you what they know.
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    One:
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    each house's owner
    is of a different nationality,
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    drinks a different beverage,
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    and smokes a different type of cigar.
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    Two:
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    each house's interior walls
    are painted a different color.
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    Three:
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    each house contains a different animal,
    one of which is the fish.
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    After a few hours of expert sleuthing,
    you gather some clues.
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    It may look like a lot of information,
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    but there's a clear logical path
    to the solution.
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    Solving the puzzle will be
    a lot like Sudoku,
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    so you may find it helpful to organize
    your information in a grid, like this.
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    Pause the video on the following screen to
    examine your clues and solve the riddle.
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    Answer in: 3
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    2
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    1
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    To start, you fill in the information
    from clues eight and nine.
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    Immediately, you also realize that since
    the Norwegian is at the end of the street,
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    there's only one house next to him,
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    which must be the one with the blue walls
    in clue fourteen.
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    Clue five says the green-walled
    house's owner drinks coffee.
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    It can't be the center house since you
    already know its owner drinks milk,
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    but it also can't be the second house,
    which you know has blue walls.
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    And since clue four says
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    the green-walled house must be directly
    to the left of the white-walled one,
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    it can't be the first
    or fifth house either.
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    The only place left
    for the green-walled house
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    with the coffee drinker
    is the fourth spot,
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    meaning the white-walled house
    is the fifth.
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    Clue one gives you
    a nationality and a color.
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    Since the only column missing both
    these values is the center one,
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    this must be the Brit's red-walled home.
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    Now that the only unassigned
    wall color is yellow,
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    this must be applied to the first house,
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    where clue seven says
    the Dunhill smoker lives.
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    And clue eleven tells you that
    the owner of the horse is next door,
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    which can only be the second house.
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    The next step is to figure out what
    the Norwegian in the first house drinks.
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    It can't be tea, clue three tells you
    that's the Dane.
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    As per clue twelve, it can't be root beer
    since that person smokes Bluemaster,
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    and since you already
    assigned milk and coffee,
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    it must be water.
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    From clue fifteen,
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    you know that the Norwegian's neighbor,
    who can only be in the second house,
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    smokes Blends.
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    Now that the only spot in the grid
    without a cigar and a drink
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    is in the fifth column,
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    that must be the home of the person
    in clue twelve.
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    And since this leaves only the second
    house without a drink,
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    the tea-drinking Dane must live there.
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    The fourth house is now the only one
    missing a nationality and a cigar brand,
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    so the Prince-smoking German
    from clue thirteen must live there.
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    Through elimination, you can conclude
    that the Brit smokes Pall Mall
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    and the Swede lives in the fifth house,
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    while clue six and clue two tell you
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    that these two have a bird
    and a dog, respectively.
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    Clue ten tells you that the cat owner
    lives next to the Blend-smoking Dane,
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    putting him in the first house.
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    Now with only one spot left on the grid,
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    you know that the German in the
    green-walled house must be the culprit.
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    You and the police burst into the house,
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    catching the thief fish-handed.
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    While that explanation
    was straightforward,
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    solving puzzles like this often
    involves false starts and dead ends.
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    Part of the trick is to use
    the process of elimination
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    and lots of trial and error
    to hone in on the right pieces,
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    and the more logic puzzles you solve,
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    the better your intuition will be
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    for when and where there's enough
    information to make your deductions.
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    And did young Einstein
    really write this puzzle?
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    Probably not.
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    There's no evidence he did,
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    and some of the brands mentioned
    are too recent.
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    But the logic here is not so different
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    from what you'd use to solve equations
    with multiple variables,
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    even those describing
    the nature of the universe.
Title:
Can you solve "Einstein’s Riddle"? - Dan Van der Vieren
Speaker:
Dan Van der Vieren
Description:

View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/can-you-solve-einstein-s-riddle-dan-van-der-vieren

View all the clues here: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/can-you-solve-einstein-s-riddle-dan-van-der-vieren#digdeeper

Before he turned physics upside down, a young Albert Einstein supposedly showed off his genius by devising a complex riddle involving a stolen exotic fish and a long list of suspects. Can you resist tackling a brain teaser written by one of the smartest people in history? Dan Van der Vieren shows how.

Lesson by Dan Van der Vieren, animation by Artrake Studio.

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Video Language:
English
Team:
closed TED
Project:
TED-Ed
Duration:
05:13
Jessica Ruby approved English subtitles for Can you solve "Einstein's Riddle"? Dec 11, 2015, 7:40 PM
Jessica Ruby edited English subtitles for Can you solve "Einstein's Riddle"? Dec 11, 2015, 7:40 PM
Jessica Ruby accepted English subtitles for Can you solve "Einstein's Riddle"? Dec 11, 2015, 7:40 PM
Jessica Ruby edited English subtitles for Can you solve "Einstein's Riddle"? Dec 11, 2015, 7:40 PM
Jessica Ruby edited English subtitles for Can you solve "Einstein's Riddle"? Dec 11, 2015, 7:40 PM
Jennifer Cody edited English subtitles for Can you solve "Einstein's Riddle"? Dec 1, 2015, 1:59 AM
Jennifer Cody edited English subtitles for Can you solve "Einstein's Riddle"? Dec 1, 2015, 1:59 AM

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