My thanks to Dan Lynch who sent along this brain teaser. He also commented, “WARNING – I thought this would take me 10 minutes. It took me 3 hours (while watching Law & Order).”
Put On Your Thinking Caps
OK — I'll admit in advance that what seemed to me like a cute little 10-minute project to help my 10-year-old daughter with her homework turned into a marathon ordeal. She was in bed by 9:00 pm, but as a genealogist, I was hooked and had to stay up until 1:30 am the next morning to try and solve this brain teaser. Keep in mind this was sent home as math homework, it's not like they're teaching advanced genealogy in the 5th grade.
Below are the facts exactly as they were presented:
- On June 1st, five couples who live in Trumbull will celebrate their wedding anniversaries. Their surnames are Johnstone, Parker, Watson, Graves, and Shearer. The husbands' given names are Russell, Douglas, Charles, Peter, and Everett. The wives' given names are Elaine, Joyce, Marcia, Elizabeth, and Mildred. Keep in mind that no two couples have been married the same number of years. From the clues given, try to determine the husband and wife that make up each couple and the number of years they have been married.
- Joyce has not been married as long as Charles or the Parkers, but longer than Douglas or the Johnstones.
- Elizabeth has been married twice as long as the Watsons, but only half as long as Russell.
- The Shearers have been married ten years longer than Peter and ten years less than Marcia.
- Douglas and Mildred have been married for 25 years less than the Graves who, having been married for 30 years, are the couple who have been married the longest.
- Neither Elaine nor the Johnstones have been married the shortest amount of time.
- Everett has been married for 25 years.
Using only the information provided above, you need to determine which husband belongs to which wife, their surname and the number of years that each couple has been married. Sounds pretty simple, doesn't it. Yes - that's what I thought too. But as good genealogists, we need to remember to not make any assumptions an don't read anything into the facts. There is only one solution to this set of facts and I'm happy to say that the 5th grade teacher gave me an "A+ Excellent - 100%" when I submitted my work.
You can print this page and solve over the upcoming holidays or if you think you'll need a little assistance, you can View & Print a Logic Grid for this Anniversary Brain Teaser at http://www.genealogyworldwide.com/Img/logic_anniversary_puzzle.gif. The answer will be posted on http://www.genealogyworldwide.com on New Years Day — 01 Jan 2007! That should give us all plenty of time to taunt others in the family with this simple, yet challenging brain teaser.
