who here can solve the einstein riddle

[g-off]

http://www.brain-fun.com/Brain-Teasers/EinsteinsRiddle.php

according to einstein I'm in the top two percent of thinkers on the planet. to be frank that's a scary fucking thought. Hopefully some of you can also figure it out and give me a little bit of hope for humanity.

 

[nemesiss]

its nothing more then the process of elimination.
it can be done from the top of your head, but pen and paper makes it an easy task.

 

[xman]

I figured my way about 1/4 through in my head, but that took twenty minutes. Picking up a piece of paper put me to the answer in ten minutes.

I wonder if Einstein meant that only 2% of people were tenacious enough to figure it out rather than intelligent enough. I also wonder if we are more or less stubborn/smart than people were in Einstein's time. Or is that Einstein's timespace?

 

[g-off]

it could also be because the people on this forum think logically about things. We should try posting this on a creationist forum, sans the answer, and see how many people can figure it out. We may just be able to prove a negative correlation.

 

[Josan]

It's a common riddle, and most people can solve it if you give them enough time. There is absoloutly no evidence that Einstein even did this riddle, much less invent and proclaim it as a genius-spotter. It's an urban legend. When I found it on some other site, it claimed that it was on a "Final exam on Logical thinking" for students at a university in Berlin, and that 88% (or something, can't remember the number) failed. It's a fun riddle, but not that special.

 

[SchrodingersFinch]

I've solved years ago and it was quite easy.

But now that I think of it, it might be the wrong answer. If instead of thinking like a logician you use common sense and reason, you should notice that nowhere it's said that one of them definitely owns a pet fish. For all we know, the remaining pet could be an elephant.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

I did it in about 4 minutes on paper. We used to do these all the time in high school. I had a math teacher that liked to throw these at us on Friday instead of teaching.

 

[CupOfWater]

Cool riddle, but somehow I got to the wrong answer....

 

[Raistlin Majere]

Pretty much what Joe said, used to do these a lot in school. Took me maybe 6 or 7 minutes to do it on paper

 

[AtheistChristian]

I tried to do it mentally but gave up after about 10 minutes. It took maybe another 10 minutes to draw a graph and fill in the blanks. I'm skeptical about Einstein having anything to do with it and the claim that 98% of the population couldn't figure it out. Still fun though.

 

[TheFearmonger]

I finished correctly in about 8 minutes and 34 seconds... 'cuz I'm sooo not a loser I would time myself. :mrgreen:
Not that hard, but it did make me realize I need to work on my house drawings

 

[xman]

For all we know, the remaining pet could be an elephant.

That is why we FAIL