Hermione's Riddle of the Potions

By John Davenport, Department of Philosophy, Fordham University (Davenport@fordham.edu)

Adapted from J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone (Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, Nov. 1998). I have added information about the size of bottles at various positions to make the puzzle solvable. My version is also indebted to an earlier analysis published on the web by Prefect Marcus, who did not start with any particular placement of the bottle-sizes. There are other ways of placing the different bottle sizes that are consistent with the clues in the book, which lead to different inferences and thus different final solutions. This version, whose solution agrees with Hermione's in the book, is offered free to the public to make Ms. Rowling's fascinating puzzle available to children as an exercise for learning logic. [Do not reprint in any for-profit publication without my consent and the written permission of Bloomsbury Publishing and Rowling, who own the rights to this puzzle].

Teachers: The level of difficulty for this puzzle is medium/high; I use this puzzle the first day of a beginning logic class in college. Here are four ways to use the puzzle provided, in ascending orders of difficulty: (1) Hardest: start only from the first page with the clues and bottle layout; draw your own matrix, translate the clues into premises, and draw your own inferences to fill in the matrix for the solution. (2) Hard: start from the first page with the clues and bottle layout, and the matrix; translate the clues into premises, and draw your own inferences. (3) Medium: begin with the clues, bottle layout, matrix, and Step One completed (the clues translated into logical premises). Then draw your own inferences and fill in the matrix. (4) Easier: begin with all the information provided, including the inferences, and fill in the matrix for the solution.
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"Danger lies before you, while safety lies behind, Two of us will help you, whichever you would find, One among us seven will let you move ahead, Another will transport the drinker back instead, Two among our number hold only nettle wine, Three of us are killers, waiting hidden in line. Choose, unless you wish to stay here forevermore, To help you in your choice, we give you these clues four: First, however slyly the poison tries to hide You will always find some on nettle wine's left side; Second, different are those who stand at either end, But if you would move onward, neither is your friend; Third, as you see clearly, all are different size, Neither dwarf nor giant holds death in their insides; Fourth, the second left and the second on the right Are twins once you taste them, though different at first sight."

Assuming ordinary two-dimensional geometry (no funny space-warping etc.), and that you can see the that bottles of these different sizes are in these various positions, solve the puzzle: i.e. determine which bottle takes you forward, which backward (and what each of the others contains should be deduced in the process).

Ways of Solving the Potions Riddle Step One: Translate the clues into clearly formed premises that you can use in later inferences. 1. Only one bottle moves you forward (F), and only one moves you backward (B). 2. Two contain nettle wine (W). 3. Three contain a lethal poison (P). 4. If bottle #X is W, then bottle #X-1 is P. [Note: this clue does not say that for every P, there is a W immediately to its right. Premises 2 and 3 taken together make that impossible]. 5. Bottle 1 Bottle 7 6. Bottle 1 F and Bottle 7 F (alternatively put: neither bottle 1 nor bottle 7 are F). 7. Neither the smallest nor the largest bottle holds poison. (Given our diagram, this means: Bottle 3 P and Bottle 6 P). 8. Bottle 2 = Bottle 6. 9. Every bottle is either F, B, W, or P (mutually exclusive & jointly exhaustive alternatives).

Step Two: Draw inferences that follow necessarily from these premises (starting assumptions). 10. If bottle 1 is W, then bottle 0 must be P [from premise 4]. But there is no bottle 0 [from diagram], so bottle 0 cannot be P. Hence bottle 1 cannot be W [by modes tolens or the contrapositive inference rule]. 11. If bottle 2 is W, then bottle 1 is P [instantiation of premise 4]. Hence if bottle 1 is not P, then bottle 2 is not W [by modes tolens]. 12. The two nettle wine bottles cannot be next to each other [instantiation of premise 4]

13. If the three poisons were together in positions X, X+1, and X+2, then X+3 premise #4 could not be true. Hence the three poison bottles cannot be together in a row [by modes tolens]. 14. Bottle 1 can only be B or P [from premises 6 & 9 taken together with inference 10] 15. Bottle 2 is not P [from premises 7 & 8] 16. If bottle X is not P, then bottle X+1 is not W [from premise 4 by modes tolens]. 17. Bottles 3, 4 & 7 are not W [from premise 7 with inferences 15 & 16] 18. Bottle 2 is neither F nor B [from premises 1 & 8] 19. Bottle 6 is neither F nor B [from premises 1 & 8] 20. Hence bottle 2 must be W [by elimination, from premise 9 with inferences 15 & 18] 21. Hence bottle 6 is W [from premise 8 and inference 20] 22. Hence bottle 1 is P [from premise 4 and inference 21] 23. Hence bottle 7 is not P [from premise 5 and inference 22] 24. Hence bottle 7 is B [from premises 6 & 9 and inferences 17 & 23]

Step Three: Draw a Two-Dimensional Matrix and fill it in using the premises and inferences. You should be able to find out which bottle is F by using the principle of elimination built into the matrix.

Matrix for the Potions Riddle

Positions in the Row Contents Poison Poison Poison Wine Wine Forward 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Backward Medium Bottle Sizes Medium Smallest Medium Medium Largest Medium

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