Bear

Level 2

Bear Einstein's Riddle

Albert Einstein allegedly made this riddle for his scholars. A fellow encountered a bear in a wasteland. There was nobody else there. Both were frightened and ran away. Fellow to the north, bear to the west. Suddenly the fellow stopped, aimed his gun to the south and shot the bear. What color was the bear? If you don't know, this may help you: if the bear ran about 3.14 times faster than the fellow (still westwards), the fellow could have shot straight in front of him, however for the booty he would have to go to the south

cant be determine brown white black

1 solution

Nicholas Fortino
Mar 29, 2014

It all happened on the North Pole. When the man shot, he must have been right on the North Pole. Getting it? So it makes sense to assume that the only color the bear could be was WHITE. So this is it. I've heard another logical solutions (even that there are no bears neither on the North nor on the South Pole), but this one presented makes sense to me. And what about you?

TOTALLY UNFAIR MAN!!

A Former Brilliant Member - 7 years, 2 months ago

Ya, the bear could've been from anywhere, not just the north pole!

Archit Choudhary - 5 years, 1 month ago

i didnt get it

Kavya Rawat - 7 years, 2 months ago

I got it. I'll also add the following: It happened on the North pole because that was the only way the bear could go to the west and get shot by the fellow, who went north and aimed the gun to the south to shoot the bear.

Consider the following: We know that the bear went west, but then how could the fellow shoot the bear by shooting south? The only way of such thing happening would be the bear returning to the same place. Given that the bear kept going westwards, the only place in which the bear could return to his initial position in time for the fellow to shoot him before giving up on finding him would be the north pole, as you would take less time to get back to your initial position if you kept walking westwards or eastwards there than somewhere else.

To understand it better, google "latitude", check the images, and then compare the circumferences (each one corresponds to a specific latitude, which you will be at if you walk in a direction over the circumference). Which circumferences are the smallest?

Note: Bears can be found in North Pole, but not in South Pole, and that's why the place they're at can only be the North Pole.

Anonymous Person - 6 years, 8 months ago

Nice question and solution.

skaid dkhu - 6 years, 8 months ago

Bear

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