Pizza Eaters
Home Up High School Reunion

Logic Puzzle:  The Pizza Eaters

On the SSQQ Cruise Trip, one afternoon six girl friends got together for a light lunch at Pizza Bar next to the Solarium Spa. That's when they discovered they all had different tastes in Pizza.

After a little flirting, the six ladies had no trouble talking the cute pizza guy into creating a special six-slice pizza with individual toppings.

Since no two ladies wanted precisely the same topping on their pizza slices, they agreed to order six different toppings: green pepper, mushrooms, broccoli, meatball, sausage, and pepperoni.


They looked for a place to eat. Mara suggested looking in the Solarium. 
They gasped as they looked around. The Solarium was so luxurious!

Decorated in an Egyptian motif, the beautiful pool with steam rising, the lush foliage, the waterfall, and the gorgeous Egyptian sculptures made this area the perfect place to relax and have a good chat.

The  six friends found a circular table and sat down.  


As the ladies sipped on their special coffee and waited for their pizza to be prepared, they exchanged anecdotes about their lives. To their surprise, they soon realized that each of them was born and raised in Texas.

One woman was from Austin, another came from Dallas, a third was raised in San Antonio, a fourth hailed from Galveston, a fifth was from the Woodlands and the sixth was from Houston.  Such a coincidence!

Knowing that the first names of our six pizza-eating Texas girls are Mara, Moira, Maya, Marla, Myra, and Marva (say all six real fast) and given the clues below, can you assign each lady the proper pizza topping, and determine the order in which the six sat at the spa's circular table??


1. The woman from Galveston, who found herself sitting directly across the table from Mara, had the sausage eater on her immediate right.

2. Marva, who was seated directly across the table from the eater of the mushrooms, had on her immediate right the person from Dallas.

3. The eater of the pepperoni was situated with Moira immediately to her right, and with the resident of San Antonio directly across the table from her.

4. Marla, who sat in between two strict vegetarians, was directly across the table from the native of the Woodlands.

5. Myra sat directly across from the devourer of the meatballs.

6. The consumer of broccoli was not seated next to Moira.

7. The native of Austin was not seated next to Maya.

So What does Rick have to say about the Puzzle?

This puzzle was extremely difficult.  I was unable to find enough information to solve the puzzle using a Truth Chart. 

Once I exhausted all my traditional ways of solving logic puzzles, I basically had to solve it just like I would a Maze where you come to a fork in the road.  I had to put in a "Pretend" answer and follow the logic to see if a contradiction appeared or not.

This proved to be slow going. My first two guesses did not pan out and I was forced to start over both times.  However when I came to the same fork in the road again, this time I plugged in the other possible answer.

Sure enough, the third time was the charm.  Tough puzzle.

Send your answers to Rick Archer at dance@ssqq.com      Good luck! 

   
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