Icebreaker - Solution

We are presented with a series of statements similar to the classic elimination logic puzzle, with each of the five participants giving three statements each.

The trick is that each person gives exactly one lie, akin to the icebreaker “Two Truths and a Lie”. The simplest way to solve the logic puzzle is by noting that one of Walter’s statements contradict two of Sandra’s; as such, that statement must be false. After that, each set of statements proven true end up contradicting at least one other statement; the rest is relatively simple.

Notably, many letters happen to coincide between the names, and each name is exactly six letters long. By taking the letters which exactly two components match (two components tell the truth, and the last one lies) and ordering by street order, we get the answer WARM FRONTS.

First, we note that Walter’s second statement directly contradicts Sandra’s first and third statements. His second statement is thus false, and his first and third statements are thus true.

• Walter does not own a Poodle
• Walter does not live in the second house
• The person who owns a Poodle and the person who lives in the second house was not alone yesterday
• Turner is from Kansas
• Turner does not live in the first house

Turner’s first statement contradicts the fact that Turner is from Kansas. Therefore, his second and third statements are true.

• Turner was alone yesterday
  • Turner does not own a Poodle
  • Turner does not live in the second house
• Turner owns Tigers
• Ramsey owns Robins
• Ramsey lives three houses away from Turner
  • Neither Ramsey nor Turner live in the third house
  • Ramsey cannot live in the fourth or fifth house

Sandra’s first statement is contradicted, as Ramsey owns Robins. Thus, her second and third statements are true.

• The person who owns Whales lives two houses away from the person from France
  • The person who owns Whales is not the person from France
• Walter is from Taipei

Martin’s third statement is contradicted, as Walter is not from France. Thus, his first and second statements are true. Note that this does not say anything about Walter’s ability to own Ferrets.

• Turner and the person who owns Whales live in house 1 and 5.
  • Turner lives in house 5.
    • Ramsey lives in house 2
    • The person who owns Whales lives in house 1
• The first statement has multiple implications; as it turns out, none of them actually give new information

Neither Martin nor the person from London lives in house 5. Thus, Ramsey’s first statement is false, and his second and third statement is true.

• Sandra is from London
• Sandra doesn't own a Ferret
• Walter lives immediately left of Ramsey
  • Walter lives in house 1
    • Walter owns Whales
    • The Whales live in house 1
      • The person from France lives in house 3
    • Martin is the only one who can own a Ferret, leaving Sandra to own a Poodle

Remaining logic

• Ramsey is from Mumbai
• Martin is from France
• The person from London lives in the fourth house

Author's Notes

This one was quite fun to write. Einstein puzzles are always fun, and playing an Einstein puzzle through Two Truths and a Lie made it quite interesting.

My original idea went a bit further; the premises (e.g. every house has a unique pet) would also be Two Truths and a Lie, so one of the premises would be false. Extraction would have been quite a bit more involved. To test the idea of Two Truths and a Lie in a logic puzzle, I made a version in which the premises were all true; this actually turned out to be interesting enough for an intro round puzzle, so we decided to get rid of the harder extraction. After that, I came up with the idea of the extraction method used in the current puzzle. While it was indeed a step up from normal extraction methods, we felt it was thematic, and could serve as a nice kick to an otherwise straightforward puzzle.