Isomorphic Logic Puzzles
Consider the following logic puzzle taken from [13]
- Mr.’s Downs, Heath , Field, Forest, and Marsh --five elderly pigeon fanciers -- were worried by the depredations of
marauding cats owned by five not less elderly spinsters and, hoping to gain control of the cats, they married these ladies.
The scheme worked well for each as far as his own cat and pigeons were concerned, but it was not long before each cat had
claimed a victim and each fancier had lost his favorite pigeon.
The Downs' cat killed the pigeon owned by the man who married the owner of the cat that killed Mr. Marsh’s pigeon.
Mr. Down’s pigeon was killed by Mrs. Heath’s cat. Mr. Forest’s pigeon was killed by the cat owned by the lady who
married the man whose pigeon was killed by Mrs. Field’s cat. Who was the owner of the pigeon killed by Mrs. Forest’s cat?
- Want to check your answer?
And this logic puzzle written by (one of) the authors:
- The Abels, the Beals, the Creens, the Dorians and the Everslys, five families from the midwest, each consisting of a
couple with two children, one boy and one girl, got marooned on a deserted island in the Pacific where they lived until
long after the children grew up. Nevertheless, even in the limited island society all ten children led long, productive
lives fell in love, got married and never divorced.
All ten were married before the youngest turned thirty. None married into their parents generation. No marriages involved
incest or bigamy and all were heterosexual.
The Abel girl married the Beal boy. The Beal girl's husband's sister married the Dorian boy. The Eversley boy's wife's
brother married the Creen girl. Who did the Eversley girl marry?
- Want to check your answer?
These may or may not appear similar to you. Now consider the following identifications
(no social statements are intended by ANY of these identifications!):
- Identify the cats with the girls.
- Identify the pigeons with the boys.
- Identify the Abels with the Heaths.
- Identify the Beals with the Downs.
- Identify the Creens with the Fields.
- Identify the Dorians with the Marshs.
- Identify the Eversleys with the Forests.
- Identify a cat killing a pigeon with a girl marrying a boy
- Identify no cat killing the pigeon of his owner's husband with no marriages involved incest.
There are a number of different strategies for solving puzzles like these but all involve some method for
organizing the information. Once you have devised a strategy for organizing the information for one of these puzzles,
then try using the same strategy on the other with the identification above. You should see that if you have solved one, the second
solution follows naturally. Follow this link to see one solution strategy outlined.
