Netflix viewers are still tuning into Brooklyn Nine-Nine 10 years after the show first aired. However, the puzzle that still has fans stumped to this day is the one presented by Captain Raymond Holt, who is portrayed by the late Andre Braugher.

In the 18th episode of season 2, entitled Captain Peralta, Captain Holt poses a brain teaser to his fellow officers.

While at first, he appears to be testing his team, it becomes apparent that he also doesn’t know the answer to the question posed by his old Captain many years ago.

The riddle is as follows: “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.”

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With Beyonce tickets on the line, as Captain Holt has offered them as a prize for anyone who can solve the puzzle, the competition becomes fierce between Amy Santiago (Melissa Fumero) and Terry Jeffords (Terry Crews), and Gina Linetti (Chelsea Peretti) and Rosa Diaz (Stephanie Beatriz).

During the episode, Rosa suggests using the seesaw to press down on the men’s necks to threaten them into confessing, but Holt tells her the “disturbing” answer is wrong.

Amy and Terry suggest that for the first seesaw ride, you should put six men on one side and six on the other, but Holt quickly informs them this will not work.

So what is the solution to the riddle that even the brilliant Captain Holt couldn’t crack? Let’s break it down below.

According to the brilliant team at Puzzculture , there are a couple of different solutions to this “diabolical” brain teaser, depending on how you interpret the question.

While the riddle would be a simple logic problem if we knew whether the odd person out was lighter or heavier, the ambiguity makes it much more difficult.

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 way to solve the problem, and it sees us divide our 12 castaways into three groups of four: ABCD, EFGH, and IJKL.

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

For outcome 1, 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”.

Outcomes 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 outcome 3.

While this solve might satisfy the mathematicians amongst us, others from the puzzling community argued there was a different solution to the problem - and it’s all in the wording.

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

Speaking about the original riddle posed by Captain Holt, they pointed out: “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 is lighter or heavier.

“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.

“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 quipped.

Which do you think is the right answer? Watch back the episode and decide for yourself.

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