Harry Potter Logic Problem
Harry Potter and Hermione Granger find themselves in a room whose two exits are blocked by raging flames. On a table in the room stand seven bottles, along with a piece of paper inscribed with the following verses:
Hermione, who is an exceptionally avid student, realizes that she can use reasoning to determine the bottles that they need to escape from the room. As she says, “This isn’t magic—it’s logic—a puzzle. A lot of the greatest wizards haven’t got an ounce of logic, they’d be stuck in here forever” (Rowling 1998, p. 285).
Using figure 1, which bottle does Harry need to drink from in order to move forward?
BONUS:
Hermione might have reasoned in that manner, but any reader tempted to match wits with her would have been frustrated by the absence of a crucial piece of information: no picture of the bottles is given in the book. The illustration in figure 1 is not from the book; it is only a hypothetical arrangement. Because readers are not actually in the room, they are unable to determine the positions of the giant and the dwarf and are therefore unable to use the third clue. Apparently, the eager reader must simply accept Hermione’s solution.
How many different arrangements of the bottles are possible that fit the clues given to Harry and Hermione?
Using figure 1, which bottle does Harry need to drink from in order to move forward?
BONUS:
Hermione might have reasoned in that manner, but any reader tempted to match wits with her would have been frustrated by the absence of a crucial piece of information: no picture of the bottles is given in the book. The illustration in figure 1 is not from the book; it is only a hypothetical arrangement. Because readers are not actually in the room, they are unable to determine the positions of the giant and the dwarf and are therefore unable to use the third clue. Apparently, the eager reader must simply accept Hermione’s solution.
How many different arrangements of the bottles are possible that fit the clues given to Harry and Hermione?