Four Clues, One Queue: Can You Work Out the Order?

Ordering puzzles are the friendliest kind of logic problem, because you can solve them with nothing more than a piece of paper and a willingness to cross things out.

The method is always the same. Do not try to work out the whole arrangement in one go. Instead, take each clue and write down what it rules out, then look for the position that only one person can possibly occupy.

How to attack it

Start with the clue that fixes something absolutely. A clue that says a person is not in a particular position is weaker than one that says two people are next to each other, because the second constrains two positions at once.

Then look for what logicians call a forced move: a position with only one remaining candidate. Fill it in, and re-read every clue with that new fact in place. Almost always, one of them now says something it did not say before.

If you get stuck, the trick is to assume. Pick the position with the fewest options, assume the first one, and follow the consequences. If you reach a contradiction, the assumption was wrong, and you have learned something real.

Why you can trust the answer

This puzzle was generated and then solved by brute force: the program checked every possible arrangement of the names against every clue. It was only accepted for publication because exactly one arrangement survived.

That check matters. The most common fault in published logic puzzles is a clue set that allows two valid answers, which produces an argument that nobody can win. Here, if more than one arrangement had fitted, the puzzle would have been discarded and another generated in its place.

Work it through, then open the reveal.