Einstein Letters
Home Up Albert Einstein

Einstein Puzzle Letters to the Editor -
Read at your own Risk!

Important Note from Rick Archer:  I strongly suggest you solve the Einstein Puzzle before reading this page.  Get your answer first, then come back and visit.

Otherwise I am fairly certain that the "Einstein Puzzle" experience will be diminished  because we talk about the clues.  If you have a good time solving the puzzle, come back and check out what other people have had to say about this famous Internet logic puzzle.  There are some very interesting letters on this page!

Rick Archer, January 2007

The Infamous
Einstein Puzzle

Biography of
Albert Einstein

Welcome to the SSQQ Dance Studio version of the infamous "Einstein Puzzle"! 

The Einstein Puzzle is a logic riddle that consists of 15 clues.  It is likely this puzzle has been emailed around the world many many times.
So what does the largest dance studio in America have to do with Einstein and this Logic Puzzle?   Not much really.  I run a dance studio in Houston, Texas.  Logic Puzzles are one of my hobbies.  Back in 1998 when the SSQQ web site first went on line, I published the Einstein Puzzle for my dance students to solve.  I had so much fun that a couple years later I started publishing a different Logic Puzzle each month on my web site.  In other words, the Einstein Puzzle got my Logic Puzzle Club started.

Over the years many people have shared comments about the Einstein Puzzle.  Quite a few  letters are interesting so I will share them with you.

Rick Archer
SSQQ Dance Studio
Last update: January 2007

Origins of the Einstein Puzzle on the SSQQ Web Site

STEP ONE   This is how it all started.  Back in 1998, my friend Donna Ruth emailed the Einstein Puzzle to me.  As someone who enjoys  Logic Puzzle, I gave it a try.  Then, after I solved it, I wrote this article in my dance studio newsletter.

January, 1999: Einstein's Puzzle : Donna submits a Brain Teaser !  
Donna Ruth (pictured at right from one of our Sock Hop Parties) is our well-known Jitterbug instructor.  Recently Donna sent me a brain teaser that claims to have been created by none other than Dr. Albert Einstein himself.

And the email carried the assertion that Albert believed that 98% of all humanity didn't have the smarts to lick this problem.  Well, that kind of challenge got my blood boiling!  A puzzle that proves I am smarter than the next guy was right up my alley.  

Little did I know how tricky it was.  I have to say solving the puzzle wasn't easy, but five hours later and about half a dead tree in paper, yes, I got the correct answer.

Humbled that I had to work harder than expected, but grateful I had managed to stumble into the elite 2%, I must say the logic test was a worthy one.   If you desire to see if you belong in the upper 2% of the world's brain jocks, then go for it!


As you can see from the story above that I wrote for my Newsletter, I was immediately hooked!  Desperate to see myself as brighter than 98% of the human race, at the time I put aside everything and began to hammer out the puzzle. Five hours later I came up with an answer I was happy with.  

While I was working on the puzzle, at various times I meditated on the note that said Albert Einstein himself wrote this quiz.   I wrestled with incredulity over the claim that Dr. E = MC Squared himself had written it.  Mind you, this was back in the days when the Internet was still new and none of us were used to the Urban Legend-type nonsense that became increasingly common on the Internet soon after I first received the Einstein Puzzle.

In other words, this was back in the day when people like me were still gullible enough to believe stuff like this.  However the Einstein assertion brought up flags right from the start. I wanted to believe, but my built-in bullshit detector was sending up one alarm message after another.  Despite my misgivings, I was also intrigued.  Maybe it was true!   Then it dawned on me whether Sir Albert really wrote it or not didn't really matter if you enjoy logic puzzles.  

Why not just solve it and worry about the mythology later?

So I suspended my skepticism for the moment and decided in the spirit of things to pretend it was all true.  Sort of like Santa Claus, along the way I discovered it was definitely more fun to believe The Genius himself had put together this clever quiz.

My next issue was the assertion that Albert Einstein believed that 98% of the world could not figure it out.  I wondered if this assertion was really possible.  However I decided that first I had to try to solve the puzzle before I could form an opinion.  I will say is that "The 2% Challenge" definitely made me want to solve it!!  My interest-level was instantly ratcheted way up.

After I was finished, I decided the puzzle was difficult, but I also felt it was fair and interesting. Although it took me an afternoon (5 hours), I did manage to solve it on my first try.  It was tricky enough to make me continue to wonder about the Two Percent Challenge.

After I finished, I emailed Donna to ask who had sent it to her.  Donna said it been emailed to her by someone else about two weeks earlier. She had forwarded it to me because she knew I liked puzzles, but she had already deleted the original and couldn't remember who sent it.  

So the trail got cold pretty fast.  Oh well.


Interested in learning more 
about Albert Einstein?
 Click Here


STEP TWO  About three months after I personally solved the puzzle, I published it on the SSQQ Web Site in January 1999 as a challenge for my dance students.  We have some smart people who hang around this place and I wanted to see how well they would do.  However to my disappointment, not very many people tried it.  Maybe a half dozen SSQQ dance students took a crack at it, but that was it. After a couple months, I no longer received any replies from someone at SSQQ. So I forgot about the puzzle and moved on to other amusements.

STEP THREE   A few months after I first posted the Einstein Puzzle on my website, a curious thing began to happen.  I started getting requests for validation from Canada, Germany, England, and Brazil.  One lady emailed from Trinidad and Tobago out in the Caribbean while another lady emailed me from an island called Arru, part of Indonesia. Then I got one from Kazakhstan in the middle of Asia. In addition I got several emails from different states around the USA.

I was very curious how these people had come across my web site so I wrote one of the people back. This is how I discovered people from far-off lands were landing on the SSQQ web site by typing “Einstein" into Google and other search engines.  These people had been looking for information about Sir Albert, but found my site by mistake. However several of them found the puzzle irresistible and set to work.

Believe it or not, back in 1999, I had never even heard of Google.  I was so new to the Internet, I hadn't even heard of a search engine yet.  Google?  What's that?  In fact, this 1999 incident is how I first learned about search engines.  It was very interesting to me to find my Einstein Puzzle page had become an international destination.  It was so amazing that someone from the middle of Asia could somehow be linked to me through the miracle of the Internet!

Pretty soon however people were no longer visiting our web site by accident. The 1999/2000 visitors helped establish SSQQ Dance Studio of all places as the major Internet destination point for the "Einstein Puzzle". 

As the legend of the Einstein Puzzle itself grew, Google et al sent people to this web site as the place to learn more about it.  Because I was early to the Internet and posted the puzzle before other sites, the Google phenomenon assured my site would stay at the top of the list.  In other words, because my web page was there first, Google made sure it stayed there. 

As of 2008, the SSQQ version of the Einstein Puzzle continues to remain in its familiar position on page one of Google.


 STEP FOUR  The SSQQ Einstein web page becomes very popular (15-20 Requests a Month for the Answer!)
Over the years many people have emailed me to let me confirm their answer. This doesn't surprise me because there is always a powerful urge to have your work validated. 

As of 2005, I suppose I have received at least a thousand emails over.  In 2005, I averaged about 15 different emails a month requesting the answer.  (This average went to 35 in 2007).  Don't believe me?  Take a look for yourself.

How Rick Archer Became The International Poster Boy for Slowness

Earlier in this story I highlighted this sentence:

"Although it took me an afternoon (5 hours), I managed to solve it on my first try."
From what I gather, the average time to solve the Einstein Puzzle is about an hour.  Most people who write me just want their answers confirmed, but about 25% of my responders list their time as well. Interestingly, not one person has ever listed a time SLOWER than mine.

My guess is that quite a few people who solve the puzzle also take a peek at the "Einstein Letters". Once they discover I took an entire afternoon to solve it, they realize they beat my time with ease. They gleefully put in their own time to show off a little.  Aren't I lucky?

Here are a couple examples from December 2005:

MESSAGE ONE
-----Original Message-----
From: Kevin M
Sent: Thursday, December 01, 2005 9:30 PM
To: dance@ssqq.com
Subject: Einstein puzzle

Uhh ok, I came up with the answer of the blah blah dude owns the fish, he drinks blah blah, smokes blah blah, and lives in a blah blah colored house.

Took me 20 minutes.

Can you please confirm my success, or the "unthinkable alternative??"
 

MESSAGE TWO
 -----Original Message-----
From: Scott H
Sent: Thursday, November 24, 2005 5:12 PM
To: dance@ssqq.com
Subject: Einstein

The blah blah owns the Fish.  Took me 5 Minutes!   :-)  

So here's a smart kid who solved it in 5 minutes. He took one look at my five hours and probably laughed his butt off. 

It's my own fault for leaving the time published.  Thousands of correct solutions from all over the world and I am the slowest. 

With a time of five hours, it is no surprise that I get teased.  I suppose I should regret telling people it took me an afternoon to solve it, but to be honest it doesn't bother me (well, maybe a little as you will see when we meet Debborah). 

I have made good grades throughout my life.  For example I went to college at Johns Hopkins University on a full academic scholarship.  I graduated cum laude.  In other words, until the Einstein Puzzle came along to expose me as an international moron, I considered myself smart enough. 

So why do I open myself up to the teasing?  Why don't I simply remove the time and be done with it?

After all, I could remove any mention of my time and restore my reputation.  The truth is I originally mentioned my time as a way to encourage people to give it a try.  I admit I never anticipated I would get so much indirect teasing about my time.  Oh well.

I think I should say a couple words in my own defense.  For starters, I was certainly in no hurry.

I counted my time from the moment I started drawing truth tables. I spent several hours designing the tables because I was going to visit my father who was in the hospital.  I was going to use the puzzle as something to do with him because he loved puzzles. 

Another reason I was slow was that I was learning to use my new computer.  I had some software known as 'Publisher' and made creating charts an exercise to learn more about the program.  I have included all that time in my total.

Nor did I create just one chart.  I created several puzzle charts to take along with me when I visited the hospital that day. I was not experienced at doing logic puzzles back in 1998, so I burned a lot of time simply creating extra charts in case I would need them later at the hospital.  In other words, I made extra charts that were unnecessary just to be on the safe side because once I was there I wouldn't be able to make new ones.  Plus if we made a mistake and had to start over, I would need extra copies.

In other words, I was more interested in playing with my computer to show off to my father than actually solving the Einstein Puzzle.

So I wasted an afternoon.  Did I also mention I was preoccupied with deeper problems?  My father was very sick.

It turned out that all the work was something of a waste of time.  At the hospital later that afternoon, my stepmother took one look at the puzzle and informed me my father was in no shape to give it a try.  My father gave me weak little wave of his hand from his bed.  At that point my stepmother promptly escorted me out of the room, thereby leaving me with my final memory of him.

Later that day I did the puzzle by myself.  It was kind of an empty gesture at this point.  Obviously my sense of sorrow did not contribute to a quick time.  My father died a week later. The puzzle instantly became connected in my mind with his memory.

THE GREEN HOUSE DILEMMA

However, I believe the major reason for my "slowness" had to do with my innate sense of caution.  I wanted to get it right on the first try.  I hit a big obstacle at Clue #4:  "The green house is to the left of the white house."  Whether this clue was deliberately vague or not, I don't know, but this highly ambiguous clue paralyzed me.

Was the green house on the left as I looked at it from across the street or was it on the left looking from the same side of the street?  Also the clue could be interpreted to mean either the two houses were next to one another or perhaps they were separated by one or more houses.  The conservative approach would be to assume there was a possibility that the houses did not necessarily abut one another. The aggressive approach would be to assume this clue meant the houses were side by side.

As I studied people's answers, I discovered it was likely a person's approach to this clue that determined their time.  The aggressive ones got lucky because it turns out the two houses are indeed side by side.  As you might guess, I was one of the ones who took the conservative approach.  (Read more about this important clue)

 The puzzle takes much longer to solve when you take the slower fork in the road.

And one more thing - Had I ever imagined my poor progress would become a standard by which countless humans across the globe would judge their own intelligence, I am fairly sure I would have pushed myself a little harder.

Instead through my own admission, I became an international poster boy for "slow, but steady".  Let's hear it for the tortoise!

At this point I just smile my ironic little smile. 

 

A Look at some of the Einstein Letters Sent to Rick Archer

Over the past eight going on nine years, most of the letters sent to me are about as interesting as this one: 

"Is it the blah blah the one who owns the fish?   Katie and Bryan"

However, sometimes I run into some interesting stories. There is just something about the Einstein Puzzle that elicits curious responses from people.  I guess after working so hard on the puzzle, people like to share their experience with me plus add their thoughts on the mythology surrounding the puzzle.

Einstein Letter One - Leslie Bilewitz, a most peculiar gentleman... uh, lady.
May 1999

Without a doubt, the goofiest set letters I ever encountered were from Leslie.  And they were right at the start.

Not long after I posted the Einstein Puzzle on the web site, I had a very interesting email from Leslie Bilewitz who needed the answer right away.

Email One:
"It is urgent that I know the answer immediately as I have other people asking me for the correct answer!  Leslie Bilewitz"

However just as I was about to email my reply, into my inbox popped another letter from Ms B.

Email Two:
 "I already received my reply from Rich Monosson so no need to respond.......thank you !!    Leslie B........:) :) "

Surprised she had gotten her answer elsewhere, I responded with this smiling reply: 

"Leslie,  I can’t believe you trusted someone else to give you the correct answer.  Shockingly, yes, he was right! 

And so were you! 

Does this other gentleman (Rich Monosson) have the same puzzle on his web site or is he simply familiar with the puzzle?

Apparently Leslie didn’t realize I was teasing. I received this scathing reply:

Email Three:
 FOR YOUR INFORMATION MR.MONOSSON GAVE IT TO ME.  WHAT IS THE PROBLEM HERE?........ARE YOU NOT SUPPOSED TO HAVE THIS RIDDLE TOO AS THIS IS TOO WEIRD. I DID NOT APPRECIATE GETTING THIS REPRIMAND KIND OF EMAIL WHEN ALL I DID WAS CLICK ON BOTH SITES THROUGH THE WEB TO GET AN ANSWER TO WHAT WAS SEEMINGLY AN INNOCENT GAME. 

I was surprised to see such a negative reaction!  Let's try the 'turn the other cheek' approach.  I sent Leslie another letter. 

Bless your heart, Leslie, don’t worry about it. This puzzle has no copyright that I know of and it is definitely not mine!  

I worked it just like you did – someone emailed it to me and I was fascinated. The moment I was done I couldn’t wait for someone to tell me my answer was right. 

I added it to my web site because it was interesting. I expected only my students at the dance studio to work it, but somehow my web site got into international distribution as a place to go for the Einstein puzzle. Beats me how it happened!!  I get emails from Singapore, England, Canada, Trinidad, etc, as well as different USA cities. 99% of them require a one-sentence reply along the lines of “Yes, that is correct, blah blah blah owns the fish, nice work!”

Yours is one of the rare exceptions that actually allowed me to communicate with someone due to the odd “dual” reply. Mr. Monosson did absolutely nothing wrong. He was just trying to be helpful as was I.

I received this reply: 

Email Four:
 I was just puzzled as I would also hate to think that someone else had your puzzle and was not supposed to so this is why I wanted to know from HIM if he is plagiarizing or not.    If this riddle was for your site only (was going to use a pun and say FOR YOUR EYES ONLY but decided against it).   Have a good day..........and thanks man......Leslie B.

I will write and tell my wife and her friends that they have nothing to worry about.

I wrote back: 

Leslie, Don’t be angry. I was teasing. I get ten requests a month for the answer, but I have never had someone write me back to tell me someone else had already answered it. It was just odd; no big deal.

An hour later: 

Email Five:
 Good Day Rick..................I was given the two addresses by the friend who actually sent me the riddle in the first place.   She found it on the web somehow whilst searching for the actual answer and it turned up your address and the Einstein one. She sent this to me so that should I work it out (as she knows I love these challenges) I could click on an address and check it out. I just clicked on both in the hopes of getting at least one response after all of my hard work!!  Ha Ha !!......... I will forward her actual email to you so that you can see for yourself what transpired.  Leslie B............:) :) 

I sent a reply which I expected to be the end of it.

Yours is one of the rare exceptions that actually allowed me to communicate with someone due to the odd “dual” reply. Mr. Monosson did absolutely nothing wrong. He was just trying to be helpful as was I.

To my surprise, I got a long letter back.

Email Six:

Dear Rick. Thanks for your nice letter and I appreciate your sincere reply. I was also fascinated by this riddle /especially as Albert Einstein is one of my heroes. I even keep a framed picture of him on my desk.........yes.......strange but true !! Ha ha !! I must confess to you that I am not male but female and added the bit at the end about my ......(cough cough)........wife just in case you were a looney cyberspace pervert but I feel much 'safer' now that you wrote back to me.

I forwarded this riddle onto my address book pals and they are nagging me to death for the answer too even though they have had it less than 24 hours: so I can see how you have become the contact person of choice. I will heed this however and choose NOT to launch on my own website.......the world now has two contacts and that is enough. I will just attend to my own address book persons. I told them that I will, as did you...........CONFIRM if they are correct but will not tell them the answer as will spoil the game. Beside, it does not hurt them to have to use their brains instead of taking the lazy way out, now does it?

I apologise for my taking your letter in a way other than the way you presented and intended for it to be received. I felt reprimanded rather than your being witty. I am sorry I did not 'see' your reply that way.  

Take care and God bless.....................Leslie B...............:) :)"

This was the letter where I found out that Leslie is a woman, not a man.  What a revelation! 

In Email Four she was going to tell her wife about me.  Leslie had apparently decided I was not a pervert after all. 

Now that she decided I was her buddy, a day later after Email Six, Leslie sent me some Internet nonsense about the government charging for Internet use. This fraud had been around for three years. (I even have a debunking mention about on my web site from a year ago: Email Surcharge)  After I responded to tell Leslie this was a hoax, she sent me three more emails!  One said she was from England of all places.

Email Seven:
 "P.S...........Just in case you think I may have a strange spell check system.........I am from Great Britain so my spelling is from the Queen’s English.    I would hate for you to think I may need to visit a web site which would help me to learn to spell correctly/especially as I am an English Language Major !!

You see,  I too can be a jester...........PEACE............

To make a long enough story a bit less long, I wrote Leslie another letter about England and received a four-page reply (I decided to spare my readers the details; it is a bit of a rant. I promise you are not missing anything prurient or salacious. 

In her long email, Leslie told me all about her life in Oxfordshire.  However I couldn’t figure out why the times on her emails were so similar to American time, so I replied: 

I am a little confused about something. I received your “top o’ the morning” reply at 10:52 am. This must be “10:52 am my time”. Surely as I write in my morning it must be your evening, correct? 

To my surprise, now I found out that Leslie lived in Erie, Pennsylvania… 

I now live in Pennsylvania (moved here 10 years ago) as Erie is the centre of the plastics industry and in the words of the dear uncle in The Graduate................."Plastics my boy........plastics". 

Somehow I thought the discovery that she lived in eerie, Pennsylvania, was oddly fitting for this unusual woman.  Once Leslie was caught in a second fib, she stopped writing. 

You never know who you might meet on the Internet.  What an odd set of communications. 

But wait, there's more!!  Leslie decided to check back five years later.

Email Eight:
 From: Leslie Bilewitz
Sent: Friday, July 02, 2004 3:27 PM
To: dance@ssqq.com
Subject: Einstein Letters.

Good Day Rick:

Well, I hardly know where to begin. I e-mailed you several years ago regarding this puzzle and had no idea that our letters were still on your site for all the world to see.

I was just alerted to this today.

I wish to clarify that I am neither a nut nor a liar; and as was explained to you at the time, it was decided I take on the appearance of a married male, just in case you were the nut.

We also invented a persona, as you can tell by the previous 'odd' e-mails back and forth.

A female friend sent me this puzzle initially and we wanted to protect ourselves from an unknown.

As you know, I had another person contact me with regard to the puzzle answer and I was not aware that you were teasing, so consequently we became alarmed that you were indeed a person of whom I could be frightened.

Obviously my fear was unfounded and you proved to be a legitimate business owner.

There are many unsavoury people 'out there' as history has proven, however I am not one of them.

I didn't realise that I 'disappeared' either until I read your letters today.

I hope this e-mail clears up any misconception you have of me and our previous interaction.

 I would appreciate the clarification to the world too, if you please.
I am not a nut, a liar or remotely certifiable and regret the impression I may have given.

Thank you for understanding.
Sincere Regards,

Leslie

Well, there you have it. Leslie would like the world to know she is not a nut.  Fair enough. 

And it is good to know her opinion of me was upgraded from 'looney cyberspace pervert' to 'legitimate business owner."  (Little did she know...)

And I imagine she probably was originally from England.  She used the British spelling for so many words that I imagine she grew up in England. 

But as for her frequent use of the word 'we', that raises one of my bushy eyebrows. I wouldn't be at all surprised to find her 'friend' turned out to be another personality.

That would be wonderful because I have several personalities of my own just waiting to meet some of hers.

(just kidding, Leslie)

Einstein Letter Two - Karin McGuiness: Our Planet Grows Smaller All the Time
June 1998

In June 1998 I received an interesting email from Karin McGuinness:

Email One:
 "Hi Rick, I found your Einstein puzzle page on the net and hope you can confirm my answer (my sister-in-law agrees with it too). Is the fish owner the blah blah blah in the blah blah colored house who drinks blah blah and smokes blah blah? Could you also confirm where you got your “official” answer from?   Thanks muchly, Karin"

Well, this one tickled me. After 500 responses over two years, I got one asking me to back up my work!

Karin, You have made me chuckle. Yes, the Blah Blah owns the Fish. At least that’s what I believe. However after perhaps 500 people asking to confirm the answer over the last couple years, you are the first to speculate on where I got my answer. I am not at all angry, just tickled.

I would only venture to say that I solved the puzzle myself using the best logic I could muster and the blah blah was the answer I came up with. Since then of the 500 or so people who sent in answers, 95% of all the answers agreed with mine. Only a couple of people have arrived at a different answer than my original one.

I gently told them I thought their answer was wrong and they never argued with me. Frequently they tried again and came up with my original conclusion.

So I believe my guess of blah blah is the correct answer, but in this world of uncertainty, you may have to trust your own instincts!

I might add I too doubt everything. One thing I doubt is that Einstein took the time to write this puzzle. But you never know!  Maybe he did. 

Rick Archer 

Karin replied a day later.

Email Two:
"Dear Rick,

Thanks for you quick reply - it’s satisfying to know that I have the “right” answer. If I hear of another “right” answer from another reputable source, I will let you know. 

And I agree, I have my doubts about Einstein writing it - although I think he did have the sense of fun to enjoy it!  

Thanks again, Karin"

Karin seemed like a levelheaded lady, so I responded with this note: 

Karin, Thank you for your nice note.  I will be writing a story about the puzzle for my next newsletter. Would you mind telling me where you are from? 

Nothing sneaky on my part - I am showing my friends that people from all over the world have taken the time to solve the puzzle. Rick Archer

 Karin quickly replied: 

Email Three:
"Hi Rick, 
I’m from just outside Sydney, Australia. I received the puzzle through an email from my partner, who I believe received it from a work colleague in South Africa. Apart from passing it onto other Australian based friends, we have also sent it on to friends in Hungary.

If it’s not too much trouble, I wouldn’t mind seeing a copy of your newsletter when you are done. Can you email it too me, or is there a web address that you will post it too?

BTW - I’m a very curious person so I have to ask - what kind of a dance studio do you have?
Regards, Karin"


So I told Karin about what we teach here at the dance studio and I added her to the SSQQ Newsletter list.  I am sure she will sign up for classes any day now and fly to Houston from Sydney.    It fascinates me about all the people you can meet on the Internet!! 

I am convinced the Internet is the most amazing invention of my lifetime.


Einstein Letter Three - Debborah's Indelicate Insult
February 2004

In the years since I originally posted the Einstein Puzzle on the Internet, thousands of people have visited this page at the SSQQ Web Site.   This kind of interest has helped vault the SSQQ version of the Einstein Puzzle to the top of search engines. At this point Google lists my page among the Top Ten most visited sites on the Internet for this particular puzzle. 

I am proud of this honor!  Even though I have yet to make a dime from my endeavor or appear on Oprah, I take satisfaction in a job well done.  Not bad for so such a slow boy.

As I mentioned earlier when I explained how I became the 'International Poster Boy for Slow but Steady', a lot of people enjoy listing their times as well.  Here is a good example from a college professor named Don Thomas:

Thu 02/28/2002 6:04 AM
"It took me about 1 hour and 45 minutes to figure it out by drawing 5 house pictures. My son who is 15 figured it out in 10 minutes (ugh) and my 24 year old daughter figured it out 1 hour and 30 minutes. (Do younger minds see it more clearly and quickly because they have less mental bad habits and/or less clutter in their minds?! hmmm...)

I changed the names of the cigarettes to different chewing gums and plan to give the puzzle to my gifted and talented students to see how long they take. Thanks for publishing the puzzle!  DMT"

This email above came to me a couple years before I discovered how Clue 4 regarding the Green House changed the solving time so dramatically.  My guess is the frustrated father took the conservative route while his son never even guessed there was a more complex possibility to Clue #4.  By taking the shorter route in the fork in the road, the son dusted his college professor father's time by an hour and a half!  Never was the time difference between the conservative approach and the aggressive approach more obvious! (review the Green House Approach dilemma)

People love to tell me how fast it took them to solve the puzzle.  As I said before, when I first published the Einstein Puzzle, my original write-up mentioned that it took me an entire afternoon to solve it.   I had said this to put people at ease who don't solve it right away as a form of encouragement.  Instead, I watched as my admission seemed to backfire on me. Oh well.

And as I said, I spent most of the afternoon putting together graphs and charts to take to my father who was sick in the hospital.  I never really intended to solve it for speed, but my little throw-away statement often caught the eye of many readers.  Not that I can blame them.  Without any explanation, five hours is pretty hard to believe. 

LET'S MEET DEBBBBBBORAH

Normally I could care less if someone solved it in twenty minutes, but one day I got an email that caused me to frown.  Read it yourself and see what you think.

 By the way, the misspellings and syntax errors are not my doing. This email is reprinted accurately. 

And, by the way, all the words in RED are misspellings. 

Sent: Wednesday, February 11, 2004 10:03 PM
To: dance@ssqq.com
Subject: einstien

"Someone sent me the einstien puzzle etc etc. Solved in 20 minutes, speed for me was more important as loving logic puzzles as a child, the challenge to me seemed more about that.  No answer was given, I emailed the person back the answer, but impatience overcame me, I asked "askjeeves". What occurred was links to some wonderful sights with some added puzzles, a forum where people picked apart analized and even got into theology regarding the quiz, etc etc.

Finally checked your sight, read the amusing letters and found your humour and responce entertaining. I think that fact that it took you several hours (persaverance, patience) and asuming you got the correct answer doesn't count you as intelligent.  Your response and enjoyment to the subsequent emails and the way you have shared them showed me a witism which shone amongst the rest. Now thats the right effort!  Thanks for a good laugh.

debborah"

Okay, I admit it.  Debborah's letter got under my skin. 

After mentioning it took me several hours to solve the puzzle, please notice that 'Ms. B One and B Two' Debborah said she managed to solve it in 20 minutes.  Yes, I got the point.

Then she made a point to say the length of time I took solving the puzzle doesn't count me as 'intelligent'.  

"I think that fact that it took you several hours and asuming you got the correct answer doesn't count you as intelligent." 

First Debborah illustrated clearly how slow I was compared to her.  Then for good measure, Debborah added she wasn't even sure I got the right answer.  Not only am I slow & perverted, now I am stupid too.

Did you know I won my seventh grade school spelling bee?  Yet here is a woman who can't even spell her own name right implying that I am stupid.  I may be stupid, but sadly I am just barely conscious enough to recognize an insult.  Don't you hate it when you are smart enough to know you are actually really very stupid? 

Wouldn't it be better to be so stupid you don't even know you are stupid?

I may be slow at logic and not intelligent in her opinion, but at least I can spell better than she can.  (Or maybe I should admit I got a friend to turn on the spell check function)

Not only is Debborah a bit challenged when it comes to spelling her own name, I spotted ten misspelled words including the sacred word "einstien".  And she doesn't know the difference between "web site" and "web sight".   This woman sounded like someone out of a "Fish Called Wanda".... 'he thought that the Gettysburg Address was where Lincoln lived.'

Over the years since, Debborah's peculiar letter evoked several responses.  The most interesting response occurred in early 2006. A woman named Lisa from my own dance studio - someone I never actually met - wrote in to suggest maybe I had taken offense at Debborah's words when none was intended. 

In other words, Lisa suggested I overreacted. Here is what Lisa had to say:

-----Original Message-----
From: Lisa
Sent: Tuesday, February 28, 2006 12:40 AM
To: dance@ssqq.com
Subject: Rick - about Einstein puzzle emails

Rick,

I'm a sometimes-student of your studio (have taken Salsa and Whip classes) and enjoy checking out your website occasionally. You have so much stuff on there it could take a person a lifetime to read it all.

I just wanted to make one comment on one of the emails you posted under the Einstein Puzzle part of the site, the one by Debborah. I don't know this person, but I just noticed that you seemed a bit miffed by her response, and wanted to ask you this:

1. How do you know she doesn't spell her name with two B's because that's the way her parents named her? Your quote: "Not only is Debborah a bit challenged when it comes to spelling her own name... "

2. You seemed upset at her response about your intelligence. I think you misread what she was trying to say. I believe that she was saying that just solving the puzzle did not prove your intelligence (in response to your comment that you were now intelligent because you solved it, because you didn't even know if you had the correct answer or not, and so technically that does not automatically make you intelligent. I believe she was saying that by your responses and witty repertoire, you proved your intelligence.

I'm only saying this because your response on the website comes off as a bit pissy. However, I did think your response to Leslie's emails was humorous and she did seem to take it the wrong way.

-Lisa

-----Original Message-----
From: Rick Archer
Sent: Tuesday, February 28, 2006 10:37 AM
To: Lisa
Subject: RE: Rick - about Einstein puzzle emails and letters
Lisa, out of respect for your letter, I took another look.  
On the "Two Bs" issue, I doubt you are correct that Debborah's parents saddled her with two Bs. A more likely explanation is that she added the extra "B" at some point in pursuit of individuality. I also think Debborah would be flattered to know that two people who have never met her are busy discussing the extra 'B' in her name. However it is all conjecture and not terribly important in the cosmic scheme of things.

As for my being upset at her response about my intelligence, let's review what Ms. Two B or Not Two B Debborah actually said:

"I think that fact that it took you several hours (persaverance, patience) and asuming you got the correct answer doesn't count you as intelligent."

My first conclusion is that Debborah's statement as it is written stands as a pure insult.

However if you wish to give the woman the benefit of the doubt, I grant you may be correct that she was actually trying to compliment me. There are some odd allusions to my 'witism' and 'persaverance' that could be construed as some sort of botched attempt at a compliment.  And I suppose her statement "Now that's the right effort!" does have an element of praise if I am desperate enough to reach for her pearls.

The truth is she misspelled "einstien", "witism", "sights", "analized", "responce", "asuming". I didn't make those up by the way; it probably wouldn't hurt to turn on her spellcheck function. 

Based on her writing skill, my hunch is she is a combination of Logic-genius and English-impaired.  If you look at the context of the statements around the offensive sentence, an argument can be made that she gave me a Yogi Berra-style compliment along the lines of "“We’re not exactly hitting the ball off the cover” or “He’s a big clog in their machine.”

It isn't easy to forgive someone who has indicated you are not intelligent, but based on her stated love for speed, I suppose there is a good chance she didn't bother to proofread her letter. If she had taken the time to do so, she might have realized what she had written insinuated I was a moron when she was actually trying to compliment me.  

Thanks for your input.  I am sure that Debborah appreciates your kind defense of her intentions.  ;-) 

Hopefully my response to your letter will allow an entire planet of readers to forgive me for being pissy.

Other emails that discussed Debborah's response were a bit more succinct.  Here is my favorite letter:

-----Original Message-----
From: Olga Koshelkova
Sent: Sunday, July 16, 2006 5:54 PM
To: dance@ssqq.com
Subject: Einstein's Puzzle

Does the (blank) own the fish?

PS If I'm right, then this is way too easy to only be solved by the world's smartest 2%.

PPS Debborah is crazy.
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Rick Archer
Sent: Monday, July 17, 2006 10:33 AM
To: Olga Koshelkova
Subject: RE: Einstein's Puzzle

Yes, your answer is correct; yes, the 2% idea is preposterous; and yes, debborah is crazy.  Did I tell you I love you for saying that?  ;-)

Right three times in a row!  Thanks for the chuckle and nice work! 

Oops, oh well, there I go being pissy again. Let's add 'em up and see where we stand.  I guess that makes me a slow, stupid, pissy pervert and loony cyberspace nut. 

So much for my planetary reputation.  It just keeps getting worse, doesn't it?

   

The Einstein Mythology

An issue that comes up frequently are queries about the Mythology surrounding the Einstein Puzzle.

Mythology One is the idea that Albert Einstein himself created the puzzle in an idle moment.

Now let's be candid.  First of all, I have never believed for an instant that Einstein was involved.  I think someone made that up as a hook to catch people's interest and guess what - it worked!  

And let me say that I have not received one email that defended the remote possibility that Dr. Einstein actually wrote this puzzle.  A lot of people hope that he was involved, but no one offers any proof.

Mythology Two is far more controversial.  The puzzle suggests that only 2% of the human race is smart enough to solve the puzzle.

I admit this statement has always intrigued me.  I am not alone - many puzzle solvers not only ask me to confirm their answer, they like to challenge the allegation that only 2% of the world's population can solve this puzzle.

Like the readers I have also been curious about the 2% claim - it sucked me in immediately and probably a lot of other people too!

Here are three excellent examples:

Email One (2003):

-----Original Message-----
From: David Gordon
Sent: Wednesday, September 03, 2003 7:42 AM
To: dance@ssqq.com
]Subject: Einstein

Hi - I came across this puzzle in an email somebody had sent me and forgotten. It took me about an hour (my lunch hour) to solve the problem - using a table and two post-it notes. It was very interesting and wouldn't let me go. I then used Google to track down your website (keyword "Einstein's puzzle") to corroborate my finding. The assumption I made was that the houses were in a row and that the first house was on the left. I thought like a European and didn't think about counting from right to left as a person from the Middle East or Israel would.

I certainly don't consider myself an Einstein or very gifted - If I can do this then certainly more than 2% of the population can solve this.

I'd say that anybody with a logical mind and enjoys deduction could solve this - and I feel that that is certainly more than 2% of the worlds population.

Cheers, David Gordon


My Reply:
-----Original Message-----
From: Rick Archer
Sent: Wednesday, September 03, 2003 9:11 AM
To: David Gordon
Subject: RE: Einstein

David, Your answer was correct.

This puzzle was emailed to me about 5 years ago. I reprinted it exactly as I received it. Since then it has sat happily in some corner of my web site gathering a surprising amount of interest. I get about 4 emails a week like yours asking for confirmation.

I published the Einstein Puzzle in January 1999 just as the Internet was beginning to reach a much wider audience. This is how I got at the top of some of the search engines. My web site isn't particularly high-tech, but it got in at the ground level and has been around quite a while.

As for your observations, unfortunately I have absolutely zero inside information to share with you. All I did was solve the puzzle and reprint it exactly as it came to me.

The 2% angle has intrigued many people including myself.

If you want to know what I really think, I think this is a somewhat difficult logic puzzle that requires patience and intelligence.

I also doubt seriously Einstein was involved.

I imagine more than 2% of the human race can figure it out if sufficiently motivated, but unless the figure is tested over a general population I don't really know. My 12 year old daughter hasn't been able to figure it out and she gets straight A's in school. However she has never 'put her mind to it' as they say. It isn't 'cool' enough for her.

To me the real number might be that only 2% of the total population is interested in trying.

Rick Archer
…………………………..

Email Two (2003):

Dear Rick:
I really enjoyed the Einstein logic puzzle. Whoever designed that has a beautiful mind. I believe the clues were sequential.

After I solved it, I circulated the Einstein puzzle at work (a Houston Medical Center Hospital) with an offer to bake brownies for the winning entry. About 25 people tried the puzzle - and I got seven right answers. At first I was surprised - I only expected one or two correct answers, but in retrospect I should have known I would get a lot of correct solutions since I work with nothing but science nerds. One of my co-workers answered the puzzle within 5 minutes. He said he took an IQ test one time and he scored 150. Avg. is 100, I think.

Luckily, I had told everyone that if more than 1 correct answer was turned in there would be a drawing from the semi-finalist names. I still baked 4 pans of brownies, though. We all had a great time.

As for the infamous 2% concept, I can assert that 28% of my highly educated co-workers got the Einstein puzzle right. Perhaps it's because a large percentage of them are "Internationals."

Americans are generally lousy at science, so many scientists and science majors are imported from Asia, India, Europe, etc. Did you know that within the general population only 1 in 30 people has a science degree? Here at the hospital I work with people from all over the world and English is not their first language.

Several of the Asians were not familiar with logic puzzles and I think that's why they didn't turn theirs back in.

My co-workers have broadened my horizons and they're excellent workers. Several of them have the equivalent of master's degrees in their country. I'm grateful for the chance to work with them. Well, it's late and I have to go. Thanks for the puzzle!

Terri C. Simon
.....................

Email Three (2005):
Sent: Sunday, April 10, 2005 4:37 PM

Hey Rick!

i just did that einstein's puzzle thingie... as for einstein's involvement in writing this puzzle... yah right... i strongly disagree with that... but then... that's just my opinion... who knows? maybe im wrong and somehow he *did* write it...

anyways i finished the puzzle in 15 minutes :o)  i'm pretty sure the answer i came up with was right but i was wondering if you would confirm it for me? thanx... it was the XXXX who owned the fish right?

It would be nice if you could get the answer to me as soon as possible because everyone in this house is now trying to solve the puzzle and for some reason they don't trust my answer :o) and are looking for an *official* answer

o yah... and that part about only 2% of the human race being able to solve this puzzle?? I can tell you for certain that if *i* can do it anyone could do it if they tried... seriously... if only 2% of us could solve this puzzle we would still be back in the stone age!

thanx again!  Faith

So there you have some opinions. What do you readers think?  Is the 2% claim nonsense or do you think it is hogwash?   I would be curious to get more perspectives on this subject. (Email to dance@ssqq.com )

By the way, the questions about the 2% Concept come up all the time. 
For another perspective, click TWO PERCENT CHALLENGE

There are two other mythologies surrounding the Einstein Puzzle.

Some people raise questions about the existence of the Fish.  Other people discuss the existence of the Zebra and possible origins of the Einstein Puzzle.  Now we move on to these questions.
 


2004 Einstein Letter Four - More About the Green House Clue
Tamara Petroff November 2004

-----Original Message-----
From: Tamara Petroff
Sent: Sunday, November 14, 2004 9:43 AM
To: dance@ssqq.com
Subject: Einstein Puzzle

Hi Rick,

The blah blah blah owns the fish.

I had fun reading your website. I had not previously come across this puzzle but I enjoy the genre and have done many similar ones. I’d call this one medium difficulty. Since you are interested in opinions, I think the 2% claim is utter hogwash. This sort of puzzle can be solved by being systematic and following the clues… no insight or pattern recognition is required. If only 2% of the world’s population could do that, I think as a species we’d still be puzzling out how to make a stone axe.

As a point of interest, when I took the GRE years ago (1986 or thereabouts) they had just instituted a new section on logic. No one knew what it would be like because when I took the test it had just been added. It turned out to consist entirely of puzzles of this type. I ended up with a perfect score… probably not a good measure because they were at that time my favorite type of logic puzzles!  Oh well, it got me into grad school.

As for Einstein’s involvement, I doubt it. For one thing, one of the clues is imprecise and requires an additional assumption to get to the conclusion. “The green house is on the left of the white house” clue doesn’t give enough information on its own to solve the puzzle, you have to assume that it means “immediately to the left” in order to carry on. 

Or at least I made the assumption — perhaps there’s a more efficient way of going about it that I didn’t see.

Well, back to watching the West Brom – Middlesborough soccer match.

Kind Regards,  Tamara

11/14/2004
My Response to Tamara's email:

What a fascinating letter you have sent me, Tamara!

I have to agree with everything you have said to me. And when I say “Everything”, I mean “Everything”.

Point One: “Since you are interested in opinions, I think the 2% claim is utter hogwash. This sort of puzzle can be solved by being systematic and following the clues… no insight or pattern recognition is required. If only 2% of the world’s population could do that, I think as a species we’d still be puzzling out how to make a stone axe.”

Response: It never dawned on me we could use the Einstein Puzzle to decide our species status!!  Clever idea. I wonder if the guy who came up with the wheel can solve the puzzle. On a more serious note, no one seems to believe the 2% claim, me included.

Last year I decided to investigate the claim a little further. I asked my daughter’s 7th grade teacher to pose the puzzle to his math class. On the last day of his class, he did so. Not one girl solved it in 40 minutes. I will simply add this is a very good private Catholic girl’s school and many of the girls are very smart. The teacher solved it, but his students didn’t. He added that since there was no grade involved, most of the girls could have cared less about solved the problem and talked quietly amongst themselves till class was over.  Draw your own conclusions.

40 minutes isn’t much time, but to me the key ingredient is motivation. I think a lot of people could solve this puzzle if their lives depended on it, but I would not be at all surprised to discover only 2% of the population is of the mood to solve it simply for the fun of it.

Point Two: Einstein’s involvement. Neither of us thinks Einstein had anything to do with this puzzle. In six years, no one has written me a word supporting or denying the claim either. At this point it is simply a cute mythology along the lines of Santa Claus.


Point Three: “One of the clues is imprecise and requires an additional assumption to get to the conclusion. ‘The green house is on the left of the white house’ clue doesn’t give enough information on its own to solve the puzzle, you have to assume that it means ‘immediately to the left’ in order to carry on. Or at least I did—perhaps there’s a more efficient way of going about it that I didn’t see.

Response: Tamara, you have correctly identified the very irritating ambiguous clue involving the white and green house.

I decided to try to solve the puzzle again last year (2003). Obviously I knew the answer, but proceeded as if I didn’t know it. When I got to the Green House/White House clue, it stopped me in my tracks just like it did when I originally solved the puzzle.

Let’s pretend that the White House is Number 5, i.e. in the fifth position at the far right.  Until other clues qualify the possibilities, this allows the Green House to be in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, or 4th position.

There is nothing in the clue that insists the houses are contiguous.

I eventually found that without assuming they are next door to one another, I was completely stuck and unable to solve the puzzle.

So I made a leap of faith and decided the clue meant the houses were next to each other. Suddenly the puzzle was solved in an instant.

That is when I realized this is the likely reason why some people take two hours to solve the puzzle while others take 15 minutes.
I imagine the careful puzzle solvers see the more difficult interpretation of the clue and waste valuable time.

A good example of this might be the letter from Don Thomas that I listed earlier on this page:

Thu 02/28/2002 6:04 AM
"It took me about 1 hour and 45 minutes to figure it out by drawing 5 house pictures. My son who is 15 figured it out in 10 minutes (ugh) and my 24 year old daughter figured it out 1 hour and 30 minutes. (Do younger minds see it more clearly and quickly because they have less mental bad habits and/or less clutter in their minds?! hmmm...)

I changed the names of the cigarettes to different chewing gums and plan to give the puzzle to my gifted and talented students to see how long they take. Thanks for publishing the puzzle!  DMT"

Although I no longer have the complete email, I remember clearly that this gentleman, Don Thomas, identified himself as a college professor.  Obviously he is no dummy.  So why did it take him 95 minutes longer to solve the puzzle than his son?  And why did his daughter take about the same time as her father?  There has to be an explanation why there is such a disparity in the times it took to reach the correct answer.

Notice Dr. Thomas asked this question “Do younger minds see it more clearly and quickly because they have less mental bad habits and/or less clutter in their minds?! hmmm...)”

I believe it is likely the Professor Thomas' son assumed the houses were right beside each other while his more experienced father was sidetracked by the trickier meaning to the clue.

Indeed, I find it quite possible that many people don’t even realize there is a more complex reading of the Green House clue and simply assume the two houses border on one another.  Given this assumption, the puzzle is solved much more quickly. So the quick solvers are either brilliant or stupid and lucky. You decide.

I actually gave some thought to correcting this clue, but decided in the spirit of the game to simply leave it the way it is. However, if I get a vision from Einstein in my dreams tonight, I will consider changing it.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I hope your team won the soccer game!

Rick Archer

In case you are curious, two years later I decided to rewrite Clue #4 in 2004. 

After Tamara's letter in 2004, my first instinct was to leave the clue alone. Who was I to mess with such a clever puzzle?

Clue #4 originally read "The green house is to the left of the white house". 

This ambiguity allowed there to be one or two other houses between them which made the puzzle much more difficult to solve.  A couple days later I changed my mind and rewrote the clue to read:

2004 Change: The green house is adjacent on the left of the white house

Two years later I received an email that convinced  me I had done the right thing.  Please read the following story:


2006 The Curse of the Green House Strikes Again!

In June 2006, I received an incorrect solution to the Einstein Puzzle.

-----Original Message-----
From: Hammad I
Sent: Sunday, June 04, 2006 4:35 AM
To: dance@ssqq.com
Subject: I think I found the solution

Hi! I was going thru the puzzle and I think I found the answer. Here it is:  (blah blah)

I also made an assumption that the phrase " next to" does not really mean from left to right or right to left. As said that the norwegian lives in the first house means he can not live next to any one if we assume that "next to" means left to right. But it is also said that he lives next to the blue house. These statements make it possible that an assumption can be made that "next to " does not mean a particular sequence.
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Rick Archer
Sent: Sunday, June 04, 2006 11:55 AM
To: Hammad I
Subject: RE: I think I found the solution

Sorry, Hammad, but this answer doesn't look right. However it looks like you understood the clues properly, so I am uncertain where you got tripped up.

After reading your commentary, I suggest this: Assume you are looking at five houses from across the street.

House One is the Norwegian to the left of your vision.
House Two is the Blue House. (it looks like your answers reflect this order correctly, by the way)
House Three is obviously the middle house.

Now please give it another shot!
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Hammad I
Sent: Sunday, June 04, 2006 1:38 PM
To: Rick Archer
Subject: Re: I think I found the solution

Dear Rick,

 I was going through my solution again but couldn't find any thing wrong with it as it is fulfilling all the criteria.

One thing I am not sure about it is that I have placed the GREEN house to the left of WHITE house but not next to it.

Do you think that it may be creating the trouble?? 

I will appreciate your reply.
 

Hammad's answer opened my eyes, especially the highlighted sentence from above.  I recalled that I had changed the clue on my web site to read:  

The green house is adjacent on the left of the white house

That's when I realized Hammad must be using someone else's set of clue and the ambiguity of the ORIGINAL Clue #4 was clearly tripping him up. 

Obviously if Hammad had gotten his clues from my web site, he would not be so lost since my 2004 adjustment (The green house is adjacent on the left of the white house) had cleared up the ambiguity. 

That indicated he had gotten the clues elsewhere, but was coming to me for help.   So I checked out my theory.

-----Original Message-----
From: Rick Archer
Sent: Sunday, June 04, 2006 2:11 PM
To: Hammad I
Subject: RE: I think I found the solution

“One thing I am not sure about it is that I have placed the GREEN house to the left of WHITE house but not next to it.”

Hammad, that may be the problem.  I remember specifically that the original clue about the green and white house gave me fits.

When I went back a couple years ago to solve the puzzle for a second time just for old times sake, I got stuck on that same clue for the second time. The ambiguity of the clue irritated me so much that in 2004 I deliberately re-worded it.

The original clue read: The green house is on the left of the white house

Theoretically, this clue means if the white house is number five, then the green house could be in 3 or 2 or 1 just as easily as in position. If I remember correctly, the logic puzzle becomes very difficult to solve. I decided to assume that the two houses touched each other and discovered the solution came easily after that.

In 2004 I went back to my web site and reworded the clue.  The current version of the clue reads:

The green house is adjacent on the left of the white house

Please go to my web site, use my version of the clues, and let me know if that gets you over the hurdle.
 

A couple days later Hammad emailed in the correct answer.  The Third Time was a charm. 

-----Original Message-----
From: Hammad I
Sent: Wednesday, June 07, 2006 8:33 AM
To: Rick Archer
Subject: Re: einstein I think I found the solution

Dear Rick,

Sorry I was a bit busy but finally i think I got the answer.  I did what you said and used your clues.  Much easier.


This final email confirmed my hunch that Hammad got his clues for the puzzle at another website and got tripped up by his fatal interpretation of the infamous Clue of the Green House. 

Once he used the reworded clue, Hammad did just fine.  This made me feel like I had done the right thing by adjusting the clue in 2004.

Then one day in January 2007, I received a letter that recommended I change Clue #4 back to its original form. Read on.
 


2007 Further Thoughts on the Green House

-----Original Message-----
From: Andre Beleqwaya
Sent: Tuesday, January 09, 2007 4:30 PM
To: dance@ssqq.com
Subject: Einstein Puzzle

Good day. I must say that I enjoyed doing this puzzle, but before I give you my answer, I would like to first comment on the changing of the clue involving the green house.  (Editor's Note: Andre is referring to the letters listed directly above)

The clue currently states: "The green house is adjacent on the left of the white house." which was changed from "Th