One of Mr. X, his wife, their son and Mr. X's mother is an Engineer and another is a Doctor.
1. If the Doctor is a male, then the Engineer is a male.
2. If the Engineer is younger than the Doctor, then the Engineer and the Doctor are not blood relatives.
3. If the Engineer is a female, then she and the Doctor are blood relatives.
Can you tell who is the Doctor and the Engineer?
(In reply to
Puzzle Answer by K Sengupta)
Assume that the engineer is a female.
We observe that Mr. X's mother and his wife are NOT blood relatives. So, by (3) if the engineer is female then the doctor must be Male. In this situation, by condition (1), we observe that the engineer must be male. This leads to a contradiction. So, the engineer must be Male.
Assume that Mr. X's son is the engineer. Since he is younger than his grandmother, it follows that none amongst the other three can be a doctor. This leads to a contradiction.
Accordingly, it follows that Mr. X is the ENGINEER.
If his mother is the Doctor, then it follows from condition (i), that Mr. X and his mother are NOT blood relatives. This leads to a contradiction.
Therefore, Mr. X's mother cannot be the doctor.
If Mr. X's son is the doctor, then nothing definite can be concluded for or against it from clue (2) as Mr.X is obviously older than his son.
Suppose, Mr. X's wife is the doctor. Since we don't know whether Mr. X is younger or older than Mr. X, nothing definite can be deduced from clue(2).
In conclusion, therefore, we must have :
o Mr. X is the Engineer
o Either Mr X's son or his wife is the doctor.
Edited on July 29, 2022, 10:35 pm
Explanation to Puzzle Answer
