This is the trickiest puzzle posed by Netflix’s Brooklyn Nine-Nine – can you solve it?

Netflix junkies are still hooked on Brooklyn Nine-Nine a decade after it first smashed onto our screens, but there’s one puzzle that continues to fry the brains of die-hard fans. The conundrum was thrown at viewers by Captain Raymond Holt, played by the revered Andre Braugher.

In the Captain Peralta episode from season 2, Holt throws his detectives into a frenzy with a riddle originally given to him by a former superior.

He challenges them with a head-scratcher, explaining: “There are 12 men on an island. 11 weigh exactly the same amount, but one of them is slightly lighter or heavier. You must figure out which.

“The island has no scales, but there is a seesaw. You can only use it three times.”

With a tempting reward at stake – Beyonce tickets from Captain Holt – Amy Santiago (Melissa Fumero), Terry Jeffords (Terry Crews), Gina Linetti (Chelsea Peretti), and Rosa Diaz (Stephanie Beatriz) all get their competitive spirits raging, reports the Mirror.

In the mix, Rosa comes up with a rather extreme strategy involving the seesaw that Holt describes as “disturbing” and thus incorrect.

As for Amy and Terry, they propose initially balancing six men on each end of the seesaw, a suggestion Holt rapidly debunks.

So, what’s the answer to the conundrum that even the genius Captain Holt couldn’t solve? Let’s dissect it below.

What’s the solution to Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s seesaw puzzle?

According to the clever folks at Puzzculture, there are a few different answers to this devilish brain teaser, depending on how you interpret the question.

The riddle would be a straightforward logic problem if we knew whether the odd person out was lighter or heavier, but the uncertainty makes it much more challenging.

Otherwise, “a 3-3 ride, 4-4 ride, or even the 6-6 ride Amy and Terry suggested, would eliminate part of the field immediately, and the remaining two uses could determine the heavy person or the light person”.

However, there is a method to crack the problem, which involves dividing our 12 castaways into three groups of four: ABCD, EFGH, and IJKL.

There are three potential outcomes for the first seesaw ride with ABCD vs EFGH. According to the puzzle community site, they are as follows:

1. They balance, meaning all eight can be eliminated because the mystery person is in IJKL.
2. ABCD sinks while EFGH rises, indicating there’s a heavier person in ABCD or a lighter person in EFGH, so IJKL can be eliminated.
3. EFGH sinks while ABCD rises, suggesting there’s a heavier person in EFGH or a lighter person in ABCD, so IJKL can be eliminated.

For the first scenario, they explain that for the second seesaw ride, “we’ll take IJK and weigh them against any three of the eliminated people – let’s say ABC – because we know they weigh the same”.

If the seesaw is balanced, we know L is the mystery person, so a third seesaw ride between L and A would be used to determine if L is lighter or heavier.

If IJK sinks or rises, we know one of the letters in that group are heavier or lighter than ABC. Therefore, for the third seesaw ride, you would weigh I against J.

They explain this is because “if they balance, K is the heavy one” whereas “if I or J sinks, they are the heavy one”.

Scenarios 2 and 3 have a similar solution, as they explain: “For the second seesaw ride, we have eight possible suspects – four heavy, four light – so we mix up the two previous groupings in order to eliminate some suspects.

“We’ll take E, F, and A and weigh them against G, B, and L. That’s two from the lighter side and one from the heavier vs. one from the lighter, one from the heavier, and one we know is standard.

“If EFA balances with GBL, they’re all eliminated, leaving either H as a lighter person or either C or D as a heavier person. For the third seesaw ride, weigh C against D. If they balance, H is lighter. If they don’t, whichever is heavier is our guy.”

This method can then be played in reverse, swapping heavier for lighter, to achieve the same result and identical logic can also be used for scenario 3.

While the solution may appease the maths wizards out there, some sleuths from the puzzle-solvers corner think they’ve cracked it with a twist in the tale it’s all about how you read the challenge.

A commenter chimed in: “There is actually an incredibly simple answer to this puzzle. It is all in the wording of the question.”

Delving into the brain-teasing conundrum originally set by Captain Holt, they highlighted: “It doesn’t say that you have to figure out which man is slightly lighter or heavier. It just says which. Which could easily be referring to the lighter or heavier part of the question. So you don’t have to figure out which man is lighter or heavier but whether the odd man out is lighter or heavier.”

They continued with a straightforward method: “This can be done in many different ways, the simplest being putting six men on each side, then taking the six men from either the lighter or heavier side and putting them three on each side. If you checked the heavier side and those six balance then you know there is a lighter man on the island.”

Wrapping up their solution, they added: “If they are unbalanced then you know there is a heavier man on the island. Same if you check the lighter side. If those balance then you know there is a heavier man on the island and if they are unbalanced then there is a lighter man.

“It only takes two of your times using the seesaw to figure out whether the odd man out is lighter or heavier. Then whichever the answer you can use your third time using the seesaw to just have a fun time on a seesaw without worrying about this very weird island population where 91 2/3% of the people weigh exactly the same amount,” they joked.

So, what’s your verdict? Rewatch the episode and make up your own mind.

Catch up with all eight seasons of Brooklyn Nine-Nine on Netflix now.

Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk