What Mr. Lister lacks in memory, he makes up with logic skills. Seriously, he can't remember anything. Can you match the six first names (Dirk, Ellen, Erik, Greg, Nelson, and Tony) with the six last names (Austin, Dunn, Ives, Lister, Newton, Sumner)?

These few memories are all that remain of his enigmatic and perhaps dramatic past:

1. When listed in alphabetical order by last name,
a)Greg comes before Dirk
b)Nelson comes before Ellen
c)Tony comes before Erik

2. When listed in alphabetical order by first name,
a)Austin comes before Newton
b)Ives comes before Dunn
c)Sumner comes before Lister

(In reply to Solution by Penny)

The only way I could think to do this was to generate all 720 possible lists of 6 names and check each one against the given conditions.  I was far too lazy to write the program to do this, so I totally  wimped out and did nothing.  I guess you did write the program, or did you have a sneaky way to reason this out without using a computer?

Posted by Richard on 2006-07-29 01:36:51