Question

Solve this famous logic puzzle, attributed to Albert Einstein, and known as the zebra puzzle. Five men with different nationalities and with different jobs live in consecutive houses on a street. These houses are painted different colors. The men have different pets and have different favorite drinks. Determine who owns a zeb whose favorite drink is mineral water (which is one of the favorite drinks) given these clues: The Englishman lives in the red house. The Spaniard owns a dog. The Japanese man is a painter. The Italian drinks tea. The Norwegian lives in the first house on the left. The green house is immediately to the right of the white one. The photographer breeds snails. The diplomat lives in the yellow house. Milk is drunk in the middle house. The owner of the green house drinks coffee. The Norwegian’s house is next to the blue one. The violinist drinks orange juice. The fox is in a house next to that of the physician. The horse is in a house next to that of the diplomat.

[Hint: Make a table where the rows represent the men and columns represent the color of their houses, their jobs, their pets, and their favorite drinks and use logical reasoning to determine the correct entries in the table.]

Short answer

The Norwegian drinks water.

The Japanese man owns a zebra.

Step-by-step solution

Tips and Given

Once we have translated sentences from English into logical expressions, we can analyse these logical expressions to determine their truth values, we can manipulate them and we can use rules of inference to reason about them.

Given:

The Englishman lives in the red house.

The Spaniard owns a dog.

The Japanese man is a painter.

The Italians drinks tea.

The Norwegian lives in the first house on the left.

The green house is immediately to the right of the white one.

The photographer breeds snails.

The diplomat lives in the yellow house.

Milk is drunk in the middle house.

The owner of the green house drinks coffee.

The Norwegian’s house is next to the blue one.

The violinist drinks orange juice.

The fox lives in a house next to that of the physician.

The horse is in a house next to that of the diplomat.

To solve,

First, make a table where the rows represent the men and the columns represent the color of their houses, their jobs, their pets, and their favorite drinks.

Then use logical reasoning to determine the correct entries in the table.

Table for given clues