Given fifteen statements, answer two questions:
Who owns the zebra?
Who drinks the water?
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.
According to Wikipedia, the first known publication of this logic problem
was in LIFE INTERNATIONAL Magazine on December 17, 1962
employees from TIME-LIFE were gathered at their favorite watering hole
adjacent to the skating rink in Rockefeller Center.
They were totally perplexed by the puzzle.
None of them could solve it.
Sam, the bartender, said: "Please give me a copy.
My boy will solve it for you...by tomorrow."
The boy did exactly as promised after locking himself in his bedroom for two hours.
Most of that time was spent cutting index cards into twenty-five strips.
Five strips for each of the following: the beverage, the color, the cigaret brand,
the animal, and the ethnicity.
When the solution was presented to the TIME-LIFE employees,
the bartender's tip cup rattled much louder than usual.
Shortly after that presentation, the boy reached into a pants pocket
and found a $20 bill but didn't think that was anything unusual.
He thought he had discovered money he had misplaced.
Leading up to Christmas day, the boy was to find four more $20 bills.
With each discovery, the idiot savant was convinced
the original misplaced bill had re-surfaced again!
The boy who answered the question WHO OWNS THE ZEBRA...
never asked any other questions regarding the mystery money.
It was not until the next decade, shortly after the bartender's death,
that the boy realized his father had secretly begifted $100 to his son.
It was not until this morning that I realized it had something to do
with solving that logic problem in 1962.
I remember the year because a crucifix had been placed over my desk
(and over my objections). The week after Thanksgiving, my parents
had transferred me from a public school to a Catholic School.
At the time, I was a thirteen years-old.
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