The Math Joke

Three logicians walk into a bar. The barman asks them, “Do you all want a drink?”
The first logician says, “I don't know.”
The second logician says, “I don't know either.”
The third logician exclaims, “Yes!”

Can you explain the joke?

The Einstein Puzzle

There's a well-known logical puzzle, which is said to have been created by Albert Einstein as a boy. And to make it a bit more juicy, this is then usually followed up by the claim that 98% of the people will not be able to solve it!

Nonsense I say. You are totally up for it, I believe in you! It's a tough but fun puzzle, and finding the answer can be very satisfying. This is how it goes:

Five houses painted five different colors stand in a row. In each house lives one person, and each person has a different nationality. These five owners drink a certain type of beverage, smoke a certain brand of cigar and keep a certain pet. No owners have the same pet, smoke the same brand of cigar or drink the same beverage.   ^source

Then there's all this:

1. The Brit lives in the red house.
2. The Swede keeps dogs as pets.
3. The Dane drinks tea.
4. The green house is on the immediate left of the white house.
5. The green house's owner drinks coffee.
6. The owner who smokes Pall Mall rears birds.
7. The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill.
8. The owner living in the center house drinks milk.
9. The Norwegian lives in the first house.
10. The owner who smokes Blends lives next to the one who keeps cats.
11. The owner who keeps the horse lives next to the one who smokes Dunhill.
12. The owner who smokes Bluemasters drinks beer.
13. The German smokes Prince.
14. The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
15. The owner who smokes Blends lives next to the one who drinks water.

Which finally leads to a single question: Who owns the fish?

The Road To Safety

A lone traveler comes upon a fork in the road. One path leads to safety, the other will lead to certain doom. At the fork there are two twin brothers and each guards one of the paths. One always lies and the other always tells the truth — you do not know who is which.

You can only ask one yes/no question to one of the brothers. What should your question be to find the safe path?

This is one form of a well known logical puzzle known as ‘Knights and Knaves’. This particular format was used in the 1986 film Labyrinth.

The puzzle has many variations and in the future I will post one that is annoyingly more complex. For now, let's see what the answer should be for this one.