Einstein’s riddle (the zebra puzzle) with a step-by-step solution

This is the classic version published in Life International on 17 December 1962. Legend says Einstein wrote it and that only 2% of people can solve it; neither claim has any evidence behind it, but it is still a great puzzle.

The puzzle

There are five houses.
The Englishman lives in the red house.
The Spaniard owns the dog.
Coffee is drunk in the green house.
The Ukrainian drinks tea.
The green house is immediately to the right of the ivory house.
The Old Gold smoker owns snails.
Kools are smoked in the yellow house.
Milk is drunk in the middle house.
The Norwegian lives in the first house.
The man who smokes Chesterfields lives in the house next to the man with the fox.
Kools are smoked in the house next to the house where the horse is kept.
The Lucky Strike smoker drinks orange juice.
The Japanese smokes Parliaments.
The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.

Each house is painted a different colour, and the people who live there are of different nationalities, own different pets, drink different drinks and smoke different brands. Who drinks water? Who owns the zebra? “Right” means your right as you face the houses, and house 1 is on the left.

Show the step-by-step solution

Fixed facts. The Norwegian is in house 1 (clue 10) and milk is in house 3 (clue 9). The Norwegian’s only neighbour is house 2, so house 2 is blue (clue 15).
Place green and ivory. Green is directly right of ivory (clue 6). House 2 is blue, and green drinks coffee (clue 4) so it cannot be house 3. That leaves ivory 3 and green 4, or ivory 4 and green 5.
Yellow is house 1. The Englishman is in the red house (clue 2), so red is not house 1. In both cases the only colour left for house 1 is yellow. So Kools are smoked in house 1 (clue 8) and the horse lives in house 2 (clue 12).
House 1 drinks water. The Norwegian can’t drink tea (clue 5), coffee (green) or milk (house 3). Orange juice goes with Lucky Strike (clue 13), but house 1 smokes Kools. Water is all that’s left.
Rule out ivory 3, green 4. Then red is house 5 with the Englishman, who can’t drink tea, so he drinks orange juice and smokes Lucky Strike, and the Ukrainian is in house 2 with tea. House 2 has the horse, so it can’t smoke Old Gold (snails, clue 7) and must smoke Chesterfield. Houses 3 and 4 hold the Spaniard and the Japanese, who smokes Parliament (clue 14), so the Spaniard smokes Old Gold and owns snails. But the Spaniard owns the dog (clue 3). Contradiction.
So ivory is 4 and green is 5. Red is house 3 with the Englishman and milk. Coffee is in house 5, so tea and orange juice are in houses 2 and 4.
The Ukrainian is in house 2. If the Ukrainian were in house 4 with tea, house 2 would have orange juice and Lucky Strike, so its owner would be the Spaniard (the Japanese smokes Parliament), and the Spaniard’s dog would clash with the horse. So the Ukrainian drinks tea in house 2, and house 4 has orange juice and Lucky Strike.
Spaniard and Japanese. The Japanese smokes Parliament, so he isn’t in house 4. The Spaniard is in house 4 with the dog, and the Japanese is in house 5.
Last brands and pets. Old Gold goes with snails, and house 2 has the horse, so Old Gold is house 3 and Chesterfield is house 2. The fox is next to Chesterfield (clue 11): house 1 or 3, and house 3 has snails, so the fox is in house 1. The zebra takes the last spot, house 5.

The Norwegian drinks water and the Japanese owns the zebra.

House	Colour	Nationality	Drink	Smoke	Pet
1	Yellow	Norwegian	Water	Kools	Fox
2	Blue	Ukrainian	Tea	Chesterfield	Horse
3	Red	Englishman	Milk	Old Gold	Snails
4	Ivory	Spaniard	Orange juice	Lucky Strike	Dog
5	Green	Japanese	Coffee	Parliament	Zebra

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Lantern Lane publishes a fresh puzzle in the same style every day, from a gentle three-house Monday to a six-house Sunday. Every one has a single answer you can reach without guessing.

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