Problematics | Home addresses
The families Poonawala, Suratwala, Mathur and Kolhapuri are from Pune, Surat, Mathura and Kolhapur. Which family is from which city?
There are puzzles with unique solutions and puzzles that lead to multiple possible combinations. We had one of the latter kind only last week, and you solvers showed that only one of six given people could be assigned his profession with certainty.
This week’s main puzzle is similar in the sense that you may not get the full combination of solutions, but some part of it can definitely be established. The puzzle also includes a truthful/liar element, which makes it additionally interesting. It is not one of my originals; I came across it in a book and adapted it as below.
#Puzzle 147.1
While on holiday with my family, I found myself intrigued by the surnames of some other guests at my hotel. The families were called Poonawala, Suratwala, Mathur and Kolhapuri, all derived from place names. Sensing the possibility of a puzzle somewhere, I asked the front desk if these families were actually from Pune, Surat, Mathura and Kolhapur.
“Indeed they are,” the woman at the desk told me. “There goes my puzzle,” I thought to myself, very disappointed, but then the desk person rekindled my hopes.
“The interesting thing,” she said, “is that none of the four families comes from a city whose name begins with the same letter as their surname.”
This was promising, so I asked for details and noted down four statements: (1) The Poonawala family is from Kolhapur; (2) The Suratwala family is from Pune; (3) The Mathur family is not from Kolhapur; and (4) The Kolhapuri family is not from Mathura.
I took these notes to my room and one glance told me something was wrong. If the Kolhapuri family was not from Mathura, then the Mathur family would need to be from Mathura. But we had already been told that the initials did not match.
I called the desk for a clarification. “Oops,” came the reply, “I got mixed up when giving you details from memory. Yes, no family comes from a city that begins with the same letter as their surname; that part is still correct. The mistakes crept into the subsequent four statements that I gave and you noted down. I have checked the register now and see that three of those four statements are wrong.”
How many families’ addresses can you establish?
#Puzzle 147.2
1. Exactly one of these statements is false
2. Exactly two of these statements are false
3. Exactly three of these statements are false
4. Exactly four of these statements are false
5. Exactly five of these statements are false
6. Exactly six of these statements are false
7. Exactly seven of these statements are false
8. Exactly eight of these statements are false
9. Exactly nine of these statements are false
10. All ten of these statements are false
Identify all the true and false statements above.
MAILBOX: LAST WEEK’S SOLVERS
#Puzzle 146.1
Dear Kabir,
The woman with the same name as the paramedic earned ₹10 lakh. She cannot be Suman because the female Suman earned exactly 3 times her husband in multiples of ₹1 lakh, and 10 lakh is not a multiple of 3. Hence, the paramedic is not the male Suman. The plumber is a close friend of the male Suman, so the male Suman is not the plumber either. Therefore, the male Suman is the postman.
— Yadvendra Somra, Sonipat
***
The postman is Suman. Between Kiran and Gagan, which one is the paramedic and which one is the plumber cannot be worked out.
— Dr Vivek Jain, Baroda
#Puzzle 146.2
Dear Kabir,
The anagrams are
1) San Francisco
4) Minneapolis
5) Los Angeles
6) New Orleans
I cracked these 4 myself. Then I Googled for US cities and found the remaining 2 cities:
2) Indianapolis (I could have found this if I had tried)
3) Santa Monica (I most likely wouldn't have found this one)
— Sampath Kumar V, Coimbatore
Solved both puzzles: Yadvendra Somra (Sonipat), Dr Vivek Jain (Baroda), Sampath Kumar V (Coimbatore), Dr Sunita Gupta (Delhi), Vinod Mahajan (Delhi), Shishir Gupta (Indore), Ajay Ashok (Delhi), YK Munjal & sons-in-law (Delhi), Kanwarjit Singh (Chief Commissioner of Income-tax, retired), Sabornee Jana (Mumbai), Professor Anshul Kumar (Delhi)
