I have been given a puzzle that involves ordering either 48 or 50 US
states, and a partial list of the states already ordered.  I have also
been told that the solution to this puzzle is on the web somewhere,
possibly on the site of a major news paper like USA Today.  The list
of states (in order) is:

1. Delaware
2. Connecticut
3. Massachusetts
4. Rhode Island
5. New Jersey
6. Illinois
7. Wisconsin
8. Texas
9. Arkansas
10. Louisiana
11. Indiana
12. Ohio
13. Iowa
14. Arizona
15. Alabama
16. Mississippi
17. Florida
18. Minnesota
19. West Virginia

I will only accept a list of the remaining ranked states, with a
justification of the ranking.  Please let me know if you have any
questions.

---

Request for Question Clarification by jasonm1-ga on 05 Aug 2002 23:42 PDT

Hi,

Just to clarify this in my mind: you are given a list of states in
order according to some property. You need to discover what that
property is (either from the given list or finding it on the web) and
continue the list accordingly to all 50/48. Is that correct?

---

Request for Question Clarification by joseleon-ga on 06 Aug 2002 04:38 PDT

It's a puzzle or just a game?, I mean, mechanical puzzle, or just a list of states?

Regards.

---

Clarification of Question by patricknichols-ga on 06 Aug 2002 10:31 PDT

1. [jasonm]: Yep - you've got it.  You have to find some listing of
the states that corresponds to the partial list I've given you and
fill in the remaining states (up to either 48 or 50)
2. [joseleon]: By your definition, its a "game" -- there is no
mechanical aspect of the puzzle, only the information I have made
available.

---

Clarification of Question by patricknichols-ga on 06 Aug 2002 10:33 PDT

I work at Microsoft, and this puzzle has been floating around our
office for several months.  Every month, the head of our group adds
$100 to the prize pool and reveals another state.  Guessing a solution
costs $1.  By this point, the total prize pool has risen to over
$2000.

---

Request for Question Clarification by mvguy-ga on 06 Aug 2002 11:33 PDT

Well, then, if someone provides you with the answer, I hope you see it
before one of your coworkers does!

---

Clarification of Question by patricknichols-ga on 06 Aug 2002 11:41 PDT

I sincerely hope so also.

---

Request for Question Clarification by clouseau-ga on 06 Aug 2002 14:45 PDT

Hello patricknichols,

I've got to tell you, you have me hooked on this question. But I
strongly suspect that there may be details that you have not yet
mentioned.

For example: 

Was the puzzle read to you or was it in writing? If in writing, how
EXACTLY was the puzzle phrased?

How may states were in the original list before one per month began to
be revealed?

Why do you say 48 OR 50 States? Is the puzzle not specific on how many
are contained in the answer?

What other details, no matter how insignificant you might believe them
to be, can you tell us?

Looking forward to your clarification.

-=clouseau=-

---

Clarification of Question by patricknichols-ga on 06 Aug 2002 14:53 PDT

Given how challenging this puzzle is turning out to be, I will give
the solver an additional $100 if I am indeed the winner of the grand
prize.  Here are all of the details I have:

1. The puzzle started with one state revealed during the first month,
and then one state every month after that.  With 19 states revealed
already, the puzzle has been going on for 19 months now.
2. I asked the creator / discoverer of the puzzle for some hints /
clues, and he gave me the following specific hints:
a. The answer is available on the internet
b. The answer may be either 48 or 50 states
c. The answer was published in a publication "with many colorful
pictures" (this comment made me suspect USA Today, and the puzzle
creator in fact gets a daily subscription to USA Today.  This might be
circumstantial evidence ...)

One other detail -- the states are revealed each month in the form of
a small, postage-sized state flag being stuck to a large poster board.
 If desired, I can take a digital picture of the poster board and put
it on the web for more information.

---

Request for Question Clarification by clouseau-ga on 06 Aug 2002 15:23 PDT

Thanks for the clarification!

I would appreciate it if you would take a picture of the poster board
and post a link to it here.

More intrigued than ever....

-=clouseau-ga=-

---

Clarification of Question by patricknichols-ga on 07 Aug 2002 14:52 PDT

I'll post the picture online when I have a chance.  We're having a
group meeting this afternoon where the next state will be revealed, so
look for an update in a bit.

---

Request for Question Clarification by blader-ga on 07 Aug 2002 15:18 PDT

What sport game did your studio work on?

---

Clarification of Question by patricknichols-ga on 07 Aug 2002 17:31 PDT

Two pieces of info:
1. The next state in the list is Maryland.  This is state 20.
2. The MS Sports Games Studio makes a football game (NHL Fever) and a
basketball game (NBA Inside Drive).

---

Request for Question Clarification by journalist-ga on 08 Aug 2002 21:34 PDT

Considering this may be a state rank from the year 2000 (and maybe
not) can you share some information on the person who originated this
challenge?  For instance, did the person ever have a teenage daughter
get pregnant?  An elderly family member mistreated by a nursing home? 
Lose an infant in a car accident?  In other words, could this list be
somehow connected to a "personal cause"?

---

Request for Question Clarification by journalist-ga on 08 Aug 2002 22:15 PDT

Here is a longshot being that the only "sports" in which I participate
are Scrabble and Pinochle tournaments, but it occurred to me that this
maybe 1) a state listing of order of draft picks for
who-knows-what-sport or 2) a compilation (or simple formula) of
rankings from "Past Rankings AP, UPI, USA Today" (the latter located
at http://www.collegefootballpoll.com/polls_1936_2000.html)  The
latter came to mind because the person starting this game is designing
a sports game, right?  I recall hearing sports announcers say things
like "number 15 Alabama upset number 14 Arizona" - you sports lovers
know what I mean, those rankings.  I'm so unsports that I don't even
know what colleges are in what states.  But it may prove worthwhile to
investigate these possibilities.  Good luck!

---

Request for Question Clarification by journalist-ga on 09 Aug 2002 10:24 PDT

A fellow researcher has alerted me to the fact that my clarification
request concerning "personal cause" information may be inappropriate
so I would ask that the personal information not be posted here in any
form.  I fear I may have become too wrapped up in the spirit of clue
gathering to crack the puzzle, and my apologies if this is the case. 
The "Nancy Drew" took over too heavily in that instance.  : )  I hope
you will accept my apology in this matter, and I appreciate a fellow
researcher pointing out my "query faux pas."

---

Clarification of Question by patricknichols-ga on 09 Aug 2002 11:04 PDT

Journalist -- Don't worry about it.  Yours is an interesting idea, but
I sort of doubt an office puzzle would be linked to a personal tragedy
in the puzzle creator's family life.

---

Request for Question Clarification by journalist-ga on 09 Aug 2002 12:24 PDT

Your words are gracious and I appreciate them.  Thank you for your
understanding as this is a lesson for me in my own phraseology.  : )

---

Clarification of Question by patricknichols-ga on 15 Aug 2002 16:26 PDT

An update (straight from the puzzle creator)!  He just wandered into
my office and commended me for trying to use google to find the
solution.  He also said that "one or two" of the ideas posted in this
thread were "on the right track".  This should narrow down the search
considerably!  Good luck.

---

Clarification of Question by patricknichols-ga on 23 Aug 2002 13:11 PDT

I just got a *huge* hint from the puzzle creator: he said that the
solution isn't a ranking per se, rather it is "the order in which
something happened".  So that means that all of these census theories
and stuff just don't apply.

---

Request for Question Clarification by poormattie-ga on 26 Aug 2002 18:50 PDT

Any chance you can get the "creator" to provide the last state on the
list instead of the 21st?

Any luck with getting the digital picture of the poster?

---

Request for Question Clarification by justaskscott-ga on 02 Sep 2002 22:01 PDT

I notice that the question is about to expire.

It would be a shame if the search for your answer did not continue.

Perhaps you could extend the expiration date for the question? 
Alternatively, you could repost the question, containing the
information that you've learned, and including a link to the original
question (in other words, to
https://answers.google.com/answers/main?cmd=threadview&id=50956 ).

---

Request for Question Clarification by justaskscott-ga on 04 Sep 2002 10:28 PDT

Incidentally, I would recommend reposting.

If you repost the question, researchers who did not notice it the
first time around (including new researchers) might start to work on
it.  Perhaps some new perspectives will lead to the answer.

Also, some people may not have read the clarifications you posted
here, or the comments posted by others that you think are helpful.  By
reposting, you can incoporate these clarifications and comments in the
question.

---

Request for Question Clarification by justaskscott-ga on 04 Sep 2002 10:31 PDT

Of course, I meant "incorporate", not "incoporate", whatever that may mean.  <g>

Could you please elaborate on the origin of this puzzle and where you first saw it.

Hi Patrick,

Please let me know some more about the leaning of the group head..
is he a history buff.. or is this likely to be some strange pattern?

Thanks,
Jason.

Jason --

I work in the Microsoft Sports Games Studio, and this guy is actually
the head of our studio. This leads me to suspect that the puzzle has
something to do with sports.  I have an incredibly strong suspicion
that the solution may be found in one of those stupid USA Today charts
or something, but couldn't find anything when I dug around the site.

Everyone:

Just for the record, it is not a list of the order in which a particular
amendment to the Constitution was ratified by the states. I researched this
to no avail....

sublime1-ga

Neither is it the date the flag was adopted, nor the flower, nor any
of the information available from the latest census state rankings.

My semi-researched guess would be that the list might be the order in
which the states reported their electoral votes for the 2000
presidental election.  I deduce this because you stated the game began
19 months ago which would put the date of the beginning at the
appropriate time for such a result.  However, after searching numerous
keyword strings, I am unable to locate a list of which state reported
first so I have no idea if this might be the area in which the list
originated - it's just a calculated guess.  Good luck.

Journalist,

    I thought that might be a good guess -- but I found the chronology
of states' votes. http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/sns-2000elections-chronology.story
 Close, but no cigar -- back to the drawing board.

-Rebekah

Could "many colorful pictures" refer to National Geographic?  Or
another monthly publication?

You can count out olympic torch path.

http://2002.ksl.com/news-3818i.php

You can also count out the postcard trip that got a lot of press a
couple of years ago.

http://www.postcardsfrom.com/t1/arcin.html

Thanx Rebekah - one may also dismiss the state quarters releases
unless there is a strange mathematical formula attached to the answer.
LOL The same for state trees, birds and flowers by alphabetical order
although I'm still trying to hunt down natinal rank teachers' salaries
(Minnesota was number 18 in one site blurb) and state property taxes
(or the most to least expensive state for taxes).  This is a grand
diversion and I'm happy the question was posted!

When is the next state due to be posted in your office?

Patrick & Others,

   We can now rule out the following things that I've tried:
1) Zipcode, numerical order 
2) Area code, numerical order
3) Hwy #, numerical order or pattern
4) Order in which state universities were founded (although still
working on it)
5) Order of states in which NASA satellites pass over
6) Any kind of connection on a map (although most are Eastern, except
Arizona)
7) Population
8) I even tried the A= 1 B=2 thing with the letters :)  Desperate
times call..

Anyways... this may be a shot in the dark, but.. has anyone else
noticed the pattern in the letter endings?  No matter what I do, I
keep coming back to this one.  For example.. the states ending in "as"
(Texas & Arkansas) are listed together.  The states ending in "iana"
(Louisiana & Indiana) are listed together.  Same goes for the i_, (in,
is).. etc.   I'll keep trying this theory to see if I can find a
pattern.

-Rebekah

Here's another REALLY good lead (please notice that I can't sleep I am
so stumped!  Can't wait to find the answer) :)

  There was an article in USA Today, in March of 2001 (which, unless
I'm really wrong, would have been about 19 months ago, correct?)

   USA Today will so far only let me see the abstract, but the article
is about gun fatalities in states.  Oddly enough, the states with the
LOWEST number, are..  Deleware, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey,
and Massachusetts.
(Our Top 5 on the List)
  
    Hawaii is also included on the top of the list.. but being as how
it could be "48 OR 50 states", it could have been omitted?

   Here is the abstract:

Lowest firearm-fatality rates 
USA Today; Arlington; Mar 24

DC_ABS
According to the CDC, the states with the lowest rates of gun-related
deaths in 1998, per 100,000 people, are: Massachusetts (5); Hawaii
(5); Connecticut (6); New Jersey (6); Rhode Island (6); and Delaware
(7).

Let me know what ya'll think,

Rebekah

Rebekah:
The article you're referring to is an illustration (bar graph).  There
is no other data besides what you mentioned.

rebekah:

Great hunting, but since Delaware actually has the highest gun
fatality rate out of the lowest five states listed, I don't think it's
it.

Starrebekah, to not cause you any additional trouble:
I also tried things like a=1, b=2, wrote a program that calculates
multiplication by average zip code, letter-value-sum divided by word
length, and many more things; all to no avail so far.

I think we're going to need a real team effort to crack this mystery
(how the MS Sports Games Studio has gotten any actual work done these
past 19 months is another mystery!).

Rebekah did some nice work finding a USA Today list of firearm
fatalities.  DOES ANYONE KNOW HOW TO USE THE USA TODAY SEARCH TOOL TO
ACTUALLY FIND THIS LIST?  What I mean by this is -- even knowing the
exact listing of the states in the article abstract, I still could not
get the USA Today search tool to come up with the article.  No
combination of state names and search options that I tried (within/#,
pre/#, AND, etc.) would do the trick.

If we can collectively figure out how to find a list we KNOW exists,
then we can more confidently search USA Today for a list of states
that MAY exist.

Any takers?

Blader: the article, even though published more recently, has totals
from 1998, not current time.  Maybe you are thinking of them now? 
Shrug ;)

J_phillip: that's awesome.  Good work.  Can I direct things that might
have a numerical pattern to you? :)

Davidsar:  Team effort.  Definitely.  I've been on this thing now for
2 days, and it sure is a stumper!  And I don't know how they've worked
@ Microsoft either.. I'm having a hard time avoiding this one. Seems
easy, yet, not.   Btw, the USA Today articles can usually be found by
typing the title as an exact search phrase on Google.. but that one
particular one I have not yet found. Secret seems to have found it by
the description.. so can you let us know where it is?  Thanks!

-Rebekah

All -- Thanks for putting so much time into this and trying so many
innovative ideas.  If you guys manage to crack the puzzle, I'll do my
best to spread the wealth to you as much as possible.  I do have one
suggestion: how about getting back copies of USA today from the period
surrounding the contest start date and looking for the info?  I think
I might try to go to a local library and do this.

Thanks,
Patrick

Rebekah, I'm convinced that you're right about the letter endings --
this puzzle is about the words as words, somehow.

Note how the first nine end with consonants, and ALL THE REST end with
vowels.

(BTW, has anyone explored an 11 or 111 or 11:11 connection? <g>)

Hi,

I can't get over the geographical clustering...

Of course this doesn't eliminate a combination with any other
criteria, or a criteria that also has a geographical basis.

I was thinking of an algorithm where you start at Delaware and check
closest neighbours for the criteria, if you find a match then good,
otherwise your circle goes wider.

I think this was probably worth less than 2c :-)

Regards,

Ozguru, 
   I thought there was something with the geography myself.  I tried
to find a pattern, and started to, but it stopped.  The original
pattern was State #1, skip over State #2 to State #3, then down to #4,
and skip back over #3 to #5, if that makes sense (It helps if you take
a map, and write the #s of the states over the actual state, you'll
see what I'm talking about).  But then it jumps west.
   But, it may also be coincedence... the eastern states are older,
have a lot of earlier dates, etc...  but why is Arizona in there? :)

-Rebekah

Rebekah:
I found the article that you're referring to by performing a search on
Lexis-Nexis.  It is just a typical graph that you see on USA Today,
and your "abstract" is actually all there is in that graph.

Considering the clue "The answer was published in a publication "with
many colorful pictures", i thought that maybe he was hinting at Sports
Illustrated magazine.  I did a search and found 50 states listed for
the greatest sports states,(
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/features/1999/states/main/ ) but no
luck, the numbers are way off. scratch that one off the list.

molszewski-ga

Also, rule out the following lists:

1) Most murders (even though I KNEW Louisiana would have been first!)
2) Best teacher salary
3) Most populated
4) Largest city
5) Safest City
6) best education
7) best hospitals
8) Best states for kids

http://www.govspot.com/lists/#state

Publication with colorful pictures -- to me that sounds like something for kids?

-Rebekah

Mara: 

The "e" in Delaware ain't a vowel. =P

Blader -- yes, I had a major "DOH!" moment about a half-hour after
posting. :-)

Just for the record, I have gone through the 2000 edition of State
Rankings and the 2000 edition of CQ's State Fact Finder backward and
forward (that is, looking for Delaware both at the top and the bottom
of each list) and didn't find that states in that order (or that order
reversed) on any list.

Since we're looking at regions, I thought it might be useful to see
what's in what region, using the Census Bureau's divisions:

http://www.census.gov/geo/www/us_regdiv.pdf

I'm not from the US, and know little about the US sports scene, but I
keep coming back to the Yankee Conference Champions page
http://www.cae.wisc.edu/~dwilson/rsfc/champs/Atlantic.txt
which seems to be full of states from the top of our list, e.g. the
1986 champions were "Delaware Connecticut Massachusetts".

I suspect there's some sport which attracts the strongest
participation from the states at the top of our list.

Has anyone checked out population per square mile?  I know that New
Jersey had ranked first around the 1990 range, but due to
insurance/tax reasons, there has been a large migration to Delaware,
which may make it the newest #1 rank.  I do not have any evidence to
back this up, it is at this point a wild guess. I have been searching
all day to find a ranking of state population per sq mi but have come
up with nothing.

Hello everyone!

I came across a website that ranks Delaware 7th in population per
square mile as of the year 2000.

http://www.netstate.com/states/alma/de_alma.htm

greyno

Patrick,

Are you sure your boss is on the up and up on this one?  The more I
search, the more I get the feeling that there is no such list, and
this is all a very clever (and very nasty) trick.  Is that possible?

My thoughts:

It won't be a "most" or "least" list.  Despite the grouping of small
states at/near the top, the fact that Texas is at #8 and other
large/populous states are scattered throughout rules this out in my
mind.

I think it's most likely a ratio of some sort, something per capita or
per square mile.  I thought of population density first but that's not
it.

Alas all I can offer to this team project is a searching strategy that
may help lead (hopefully) to an answer.
I've found some good leads by searching for the terms:

delaware+ranked+first

in Google 

http://WWW.GOOgle.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=DELAWARE+RANKED+FIRST&btnG=Google+Search

It has lead me to a list of various categories that Delaware is ranked
#`1, some I was able to verify were not the answer:

1) GSP (Gross State product, although Delaware is 1 and Connecticut is
#2 that's it)
2) # of scientist and engineers in the workforce
3) number of patients per 1000 workers
4) number of office jobs
5) importing fresh fish (phew!)

The GSP was the only one that I found not to be it, the other
statistics I've been unable to find the complete table.
Hope this helps.

I thought it could have been associated with the travels of the
1947-1949 Freedom Train across 48 states
and the 1975-1976 Freedom Train which might have traversed 50
states... particulary when the puzzle creator said "on the right
track"
Freedom Train
http://www.freedomtrain.org/aft_timeline.htm
"The 25-car steam-powered American Freedom Train opens to a sellout
crowd of 40,000 at Delaware Park"
..but no :-(
lot-ga

Hi

To narrow down the search, I used an advanced search with all the
search criteria given and possible.

The results showed pages only from the site www.usatoday.com, in
English, containing the states in its text. There are 226 links which
I don't have the time to look in, but if the list is indeed from USA
Today, it should be found in one of these sites.

The link to the search:

://www.google.com/search?as_q=Delaware+Connecticut+Massachusetts+Rhode-Island+New-Jersey+Illinois&num=100&hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&lr=lang_en&as_ft=i&as_filetype=&as_qdr=all&as_occt=body&as_dt=i&as_sitesearch=www.usatoday.com&safe=images

Another thought I had was that if it is possible in some was to make
sure that the words in these pages appear in a certain order using a
certain operator, it could be used to get to the list immediatly.
E.G. If the operator * means that the word from it's left must come
before the word from it's right in the text of the page, the search
"Delaware * Connecticut * Massachusetts" will probably get you to the
exact list you're looking for. The problem is, I don't know if such an
option exists.

Hope this helps and Good Luck...

Another exclusion/deducation: 
Not the list of states who filed lawsuits against the Tobacco
companies. Delaware was not the first, although the last ones fit the
trend.

Has anyone looked into highway tolls?  I know Deleware has them set up
right on I-95, and Massachusetts has lots of them too...

Team effort - the best way to solve anything!  : )  I keep coming back
around to the answer being sports-related because of the puzzle
originator's work interests.  The college rankings (football and
basketball) continue to pique my curiousity.  This is a great
diversion!

Biggest clue is (possibly is the answer can be 48 or 50.
So there 'could' be two scenerios
1. Can be TWO correct answers, depending on 'how' it is answered.
- depending on how you use the two 'extra' states in the calculation 
Or 
2. ONE correct answer if the two extra states can be included/excluded
in the answer without affecting it. i.e the 2 'extra' states do not
affect the equation.
lot-ga

As a response to the last comment, I thought we were just not being
told whether it was 48 or 50, not that there are 2 possible answers.
Any thoughts?

I was under the impression that the phrase "that involves ordering
either 48 or 50 US states" implied that the puzzle's last two answers
were necessarily (in one of two possible orders) Alaska and Hawai'i. 
Rereading it, I guess there are certainly several possible
interpretations of that phrase...

FYI

I did a subsearch on the link provided by derias_stormrage-ga,
(good thought, derias), using terms like 'list' and 'states'.
I looked through a lot of lists, but didn't find a match.

My take on the 48/50 is that there is one solution, which has
either 48 or 50 states, and we'll know it when we see it.

I have found a lot of similarities between the states listed and the
spread of the West Nile Virus.
Just a thought...

Has the West Nile Virus even been in the US for 19 months? Also, a new
state could not be added each month with certinty if this were the
case.

Wait a minute...maybe the guy posing this riddle is spreading the West
Nile Virus! just kidiing of course.. But West Nile can be ruled out
because it was discovered in New York last year.

You can rule out when football and basketball programs were started at
the state universities.  Also, when the school nicknames and mascots
became official.

It's not US Battleships or Submarines, both of which use state names.

I don't think it could be any sort of historical order since Arizona
is #12 and it was the 47th or 48th State admitted.

Wow, this is some tough stuff... *rubs forehead*.

One idea... Delaware is the registered home of more corporations than
any other state by far. Per their website:

"More than 308,000 companies are incorporated in Delaware including 60
percent of the Fortune 500 and 50 percent of the companies listed on
the New York Stock Exchange. The Delaware Corporation Law, the Court
of Chancery, and the customer service-oriented staff at the Division
of Corporations are all sound reasons why Delaware leads the nation as
a major corporate domicile."

Doesn't seem likely, but could Connecticut be #2, then Mass. ...?

Boy, there sure has been some creative thinking here!!  I noticed in
skimming through the comments that it seemed like everyone (except for
Rebekkah and the gun fatalities) was ranking and searching from
1-48/50 as if #1 were first/most.  What about the possibility that
it's a reverse order of some sort.  In other words, what state has the
fewest or what state was the most recent?  Of course, if you're
talking sports, ranking Delaware 1 and Texas 8 really puts a crimp in
a lot of the possibilities :-)

Some suggestions on the geographical clusters:

1) Itinerary of some tour, like a band or other group (does anyone
know what George Thorogood is doing right now?)
2) Timeline of adoption of some sport by state high schools. 
Clustering occurs because of presence of nearby competition.
3) Timeline of first appearances by old-timey barnstorming sports
teams.  (Globetrotters are out because they started in Illinois. 
House of David ditto because they started in Michigan.)
4) Spread of some franchise a la Krispy Kreme or White Castle.

The 48/50 conundrum could be due to the fact that two states lack the
property common to all the others.  Should they be at the end of the
list or left off the list altogether?  (This doesn't necessarily have
to mean Alaska and Hawaii, of course.)

I think it is also possible that the "list" is not searchable text. 
Maybe it is an ordering of streets that can be found on a map? 
Atlantic City, Washington D.C., and many other towns and cities have a
collection of streets named after states.  Though I haven't found any
with the same order yet...

What about the Census Bureau statistical abstracts? Would it be worth
the effort to set up a SETI@home-type shared number crunching system
to figure out if the states line up according to the list on some
abstract chart or other? Census bureau statistics are listed
alphabetically by the state name, but you might get interesting
results if you sort according to one of the columns.

(Statistical Abstract Of the US):

http://www.census.gov/statab/www/

If it *is* in here, then your manager is one diabolical SOB.

Adding to the theory posted on tours...the campaign path for either
bush or gore from 2000, since this was apparently started in Jan 2001,
which is when inauguration is.  I am also trying to track down the
trail of conventions from 2000 (Star Trek, Xena, etc etc).  Hey, it
might be a long shot, but remember, this was started by a guy in the
computer industry.  Aren't they all trekkies or something???  :)

You can rule out average CEO salaries for 2000. It worked for the
first few states but not all.

Also discount the following:  

1.  NFL #1 draft picks, by either school or birth state, either
starting in 1936 and going forward, or 2000 and working backward

2.  NBA #1 draft picks, by either school or birth state, either
starting in 1947 and going forward, or 2000 and working backward

3.  Heisman winners, by either school or birth state, either starting
in 1935 and going forward, or 2000 and working backward

Also discount: state birds, flowers, animals, nicknames (sorry if
anyone else has already rebuked those...)

Also discount: Gross State Product (both total and for each individual
industry), Compensation of Employees, Indirect Husiness Tax (pretty
much ANY info culled from www.bea.gov).

Also discount: House representatives per state, representatives per x
number of citizens (Delaware has a whole lot, but RI has more),
electoral votes... and just about everything else in the whole wide
world!

I just KNOW the answer will be in "My First Almanac" or somethin'...

I checked a Washington DC map. Connecticut Ave and Massachusetts Ave
are important streets and run close together and parallel, but
Delaware Ave is small and across the city. And New York Ave and
Pennsylvania Ave are very big important roads and aren't on the list.

But an atlas does fit the description of a book with lots of color
pictures.

Patrick - Can you post the specific wording the creator / discoverer
of the puzzle used when starting the game?

Heading into the weekend, I thought I would post a list of discounted
theories as follows:  amendments ratified,
flag/flower/tree/animal/motto/nickname dates and alphabetical,
electoral vote reporting, Olympic torch path, postcard trip, new
quarter release, tax info, zip codes, area codes, hwy #, population
info, nasa satellite orbit, university dates/football & basketball
inception/nicknames/mascots, NFL & NBA #1 pick (2000 back and 1930s
forward), heisman trophy winners (2000 back and 1930s forward), gun
deaths, murder rates, teachers’ salary, largest city, safest city,
largest capital city, education/hospital rankings, kid friendly,
tobacco lawsuits, battleship/sub names, most, population change,
homeownership rate, people per sq mile, avg age, houses without
phones, capital city founded, highest/lowest point, 1999energy
rankings, gross state product, avg income, business tax, most info
from www.bea.gov, total congress reps, reps per person, total
electoral votes

This should help people from spending valuable time researching
something that has already been done.  I will try and keep track of
new ones as they are posted, and post a new list next week.  Happy
researching!!!  :)

Hi Patrick,

Is your boss into square dancing?

If so, check out:  

http://home.earthlink.net/~dandy512/Conventions.html

Cheers,

Micha

In case the musings about this are seeming to hit a dead end, check
out the discussion group at:

www.metafilter.com/comments.mefi/19383

who are banging their heads together on precisely the same puzzle.  

And Patrick, what are your boss' initials?  They wouldn't happen to be
P.O., or D.O., would they?

I've been through the list provided by derias_stormrage-ga, which was
226 (although it's now showing only 192) results from a focused search
on USA Today. No luck I'm afraid!

Given your clue of August 23rd, I get the STRONG feeling that this has
something to do with the 2000 US elections. The timing is right (a
puzzle about this event that was created a mere month or two after the
fact), the scope is right (easy to find data for all states), and
there are many opportunities for a "the order in which something
happened" solution, such as:

* order the presidential/congress/senate seats were acclaimed in each
state.
* order in which the polls closed/opened
* order of primaries or something like that
* etc. 

I've done some searching, but haven't had any luck. 

Another reason that this seems promising to me is that the majority of
the initial states in the list are in the East, where things would
have more likely happened first.....

Happy hunting everyone. 

websearcher-ga

Hey guys!
         Good work.. ya'll are making me look bad! :)   Just wanted to
say that I haven't given up, but have just been out of town for 2 1/2
weeks.  I read a few books on the way trying to solve the puzzle
(Klutz State Facts book, etc), but to no avail...  you all have
definitely found some great leads though, so I'll check out everything
& get back to work!!

-Rebekah

Hi Patrick & Others,
 Okay, it's not the order of 2000 Presidential or Congressional
Primary Dates, as found here:  http://www.fec.gov/pages/2kchron.htm

It's also not the order in which state got their newspaper..
http://www.libraries.psu.edu/iasweb/microforms/chronewb.html


-Rebekah

Lagniappe;  It's also not the order system that Denny's were numbered
in, or visited in the Project; Denny's.

Here's another interesting thought that came to me over my 22 hour car
ride this week:    Patrick, Is it possible that the reason your boss
is releasing these one at a time over a month's period is that
whatever publication he's reading does a feature every so often, &
releases one of these at a time?  Just a thought,.. may be why we've
not come up with a "list" online so far.

-rebekah

My answer:

Alaska
California
Colorado
Georgia
Hawaii
Idaho
Kansas
Kentucky
Maine
Michigan
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Mexico
New York
North Carolina
North Dakota
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
South Carolina
South Dakota
Tennessee
Utah
Vermont
Virginia
Washington
Wyoming  

Explanation - The rest of the States of America. The order (ranking)
is not relevant. The order given so far has been random (throwing
darts at a map?)

<i>The answer is available on the Internet</i> - Of course.
<i>The answer may be either 48 or 50 states</i> - Your choice.
<i>The answer was published in a publication "with many colorful
pictures"</a> - Any atlas with the United States.

This being correct would depend on how the question was asked. If it
was "complete this sequence," then it would be wrong. If it was,
"complete this list," then it fits the clues and it was a trick
question.

BTW,  
    Even though the puzzle creator says that it has something to do
with "the order in which something happened"..  I still don't want to
give up my theory on the actual letters in the states themselves...
ESPECIALLY after noticing this:
    There are only 6 states in the US that start and end with a
vowel.. that was a clue on jeopardy.  They are (in no particular
order):  Arizona, Alaska, Alabama, Indiana, Ohio, and Iowa.   They
are, with the exception of Alaska (b/c it could be 48 OR 50)  all next
to each other.

     Let me know what ya'll think... I guess it's just a very strange
coincedence.

-rebekah

Well, taking a cue from the hint above, I found the 50/50 tour
itinerary for George Thorogood and the Destroyers. I thought it was
worth following up when I remember they're originally the DELAWARE
Destroyers; where better to start a tour than Delaware? Alas, they
chose Hawaii:

http://home.cogeco.ca/~grtfled/5050tour.htm

Other than ol' Bad to the Bone, and a new gal who's repeating the
stunt, 50-state tours seem limited to politics or promotion.

how do i answer your question, i am new and believe i have the
answer,please reply asap

tanktaylor2000,

You must be a google researcher to officially "answer" the question. 
Read the Google Answers FAQ to find out
how to become a researcher.  Until then you can only post comments
that unfortunately don't allow you to collect
the bid amount.  This transaction can be carried out outside of Google
Answers although.  Please post the answer
if you do such a thing.  Otherwise we will all go crazy.

Following up on my earlier line of inquiry, the order also seems not
to correspond to Ralph Nader's vaunted campaign tour of all 50 states,
completed just before the Green Party convention in June 2000:

http://216.239.37.100/search?q=cache:hlzUb0uwmEYC:gwu.edu/~action/nader50.html+nader+all.50.states&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
{best source I could find}

Just another thought I had...

patricknichols-ga, you should consider purchasing Copernic Pro
(http://www.copernic.com/products/copernic/pro/index.html).

It refines results automatically, and allows you to obtain even
greater precision. Read about it at the link.

BTW, I do not work at Copernic. This is just a friendly suggestion.

Is it possible that it's something related to Title IX?  It seems like
an event which happened in each state is likely to be related to
passing or copmlying with a federal regulation, and if the creator is
interested in sports . . . ?

Could it be the list of states that Clinton visited as president?  I
remember it making the news when he visited Nebraska, the last of the
50, late in his second term.  That would fit with the whole
Election-2000 theory, though it doesn't match up with the 48 vs. 50
states idea.

Does anyone else find it strange that the prize money increases as the
puzzle becomes easier?  According to the asker, one state is revealed
each month and the prize is increased by $100.  In the first month,
you would have won $100 if you could have figured out the answer based
on only the first state given.  This would be nearly impossible.  Now
that there are 20 states listed and the puzzle is much more solvable,
the prize is 20 times greater.

A good puzzle does not require you to know some arcane chronology or
statistic.  So if this is really a puzzle, we should be able to deduce
the answer  from some reasonably well-known property of the states
themselves (either from the letters that make up the state names, or
from the state capitals, or geography, etc.)  Since there are hundreds
or thousands of people working on this and nobody has made any headway
at all (lots of effort has been expended but nobody has found a
pattern in more than five or six of the states), I don't think this is
a puzzle in the classic sense.  "Linus' Law" should have kicked in --
"Given enough eyeballs, all bugs [problems] are shallow.'' [Linus
Torvalds]

If this is a contest or game to see who can best use an internet
search engine to find an obscure list of states, it's not fun and it's
not intellectually stimulating.  Since it will take four years to
reveal all of the states, there can be no guarantee that the answer
will still be available on the web as we near the end of the list.

My guess is that this is an evil trick being played by the manager to
try to retain employees.  The promise of an eventual $5000 payoff to
the winner may keep some employees from leaving the company.  The
clues are all red herrings.  If my "evil boss" theory is not correct,
my other theory is that the person who created the puzzle just does
not know how to create a good puzzle or Patrick is not passing along
accurate information.

All that said, my hope is that I'm wrong and this is a very clever
puzzle and I will smack myself on the forehead when the answer is
revealed.

And, just in case this was a test by Google staff
to see if we're fully aware of all their beta tools,
this is NOT the result of entering the first 5 states
into the Google Sets beta:
http://labs.google.com/sets?hl=en&q1=Delaware&q2=Connecticut&q3=Massachusetts&q4=Rhode+Island&q5=New+Jersey&btn=Large+Set

tanktaylor, all you really have to do is post the next state. If it
turns out that you're right, the questioner can contact you and the
giving of the answer/sending of the payment arrangements can be made.

I like asbestosman-ga's idea about Clinton's visits to all 50 states. 
It fits timewise, and also would help to explain the clustering of
states geographically --  for example, after Clinton visited
Connecticut, perhaps he stopped in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.  I
haven't found a list yet, but it must be out there somewhere!

I should mention that like Nader, Nixon visited (or at least promised
to visit) every state during the 1960 campaign.  While this has
nothing to do with events in 2000, perhaps the puzzle creator wasn't
thinking about very recent history.  (I haven't found that list
either.)

In response to mara-ga's recent comment, I would suggest that
tanktaylor-ga post two or three more states, rather than one.  There
is a 1 in 30 (or 1 in 28) chance that tanktaylor-ga could post the
next correct state without having the correct answer.  However, the
chances of getting two correct states at random are 1 in 870 (or 1 in
756), if my calculations are correct.  And three correct states at
random would be extraordinarily unlikely.

It wouldn't be Clinton's visits to the states, since he was in
California on 2/22/93, which would have put it in the first five
states at least.

I'm not inclined to believe that this is any sort of a tour, or event
where something moved, geographically, from state to state -- because
of the irregular pattern.  For instance, wouldn't it make sense (for
Clinton, or the Rolling STones Tour, or whoever)... to go from
Delaware to Massachusetts? Instead of skipping over Mass to
Connecticut and back?  If you look at my previous post about skipping
from #1 to #3, down to #4, and back - it might make more sense what
I'm talking about.  I know that these tours sometimes skip based on
availability, etc.. possibility it's VISITS spread over time, (one in
March, then June, etc) but I don't think its a short based tour.

And.. can I say... <getting out the frustration of not being able to
find this> .. ARRRRRRRRRRHGGGGGGGGGGGGH!:)     Patrick, are you
playing a trick on us? :)  hehe.

-Rebekah

Yikes...only a week to go before this question expires.  Whether we
find an answer or not, I think it probably wins the award for the
question with most number of comments.

I have an idea: Why don't we all check Google Sets at
http://labs.google.com and then try any combination of states so that
the first 20 listed in the results matches our list exactly? :-)

Maybe it's the order that they appear in the dictionary, not just a
entry, just anywhere.

or maybe it's the order that a magazine does a spread on that state.

remember, it's the order that something happened.

A request,

could you have the 'evil puzzle creator' post the puzzle himself, so
that we can be sure that nothing is being lost in translation?

And some thoughts,

The biggest discontinuties geographically, population size, and a
number of other factors are numbers 17-20, and 14, and 8. (Florida,
Minnesota, West Virginia, Maryland, Arizona, and Texas respectively). 
Thus orderings on population, geographical features, paleoclimate,
etc. are out.  We should also be able to rule out a number of things
strongly correleted with population size and climate (ie a florida
cross country ski team would be unlikely rated higher than say
montanas...) we should be able to rule out sport rankings for teams
where such rankings are strongly correlated with population density. 
We can't rule out individual performers,  nor can we rule out small
school/collegiate performance.  However, if it is sport performance
for a team, it should be one of the more obscure sports due to the
population size effect, and the exclusion of california and new york,
but inclusion of texas and florida.

We should also note that none of the states are west coast or
northwest, and the predominant clustering of series of numbers (ie
1,2,3,4;  8, 9, 10; 15, 16, 17; 6, 7; 11, 12; 19, 20;).  With this
significant clustering occuring this implies at least some sort of
'nearest neighbor' effect.  Based on this information, I would hereby
guess that 21 will be either VA or PA.

Question, each guess costs 1$, but must you guess all of the remaining
states at once, or can you guess a few at a time and he'll say no at
the first wrong answer?  If the latter, it might be worth it to
'purchase' some additional information based upon the above
observations.

LetterRip

My bad,

I just reread the question and noted that the listing of states was
required along with the rationale for the ordering... I guess time for
more searching...

LetterRip

some additional thoughts....

The author of the puzzle had to find the list on the internet,
however, it is unlikely that he found a site via a random search and
then came up with the puzzle, nor is it likely that he came up with a
puzzle and then found a site that contained the solution. Thus, it
must have been a site that he visited, and then realized its value as
a riddle.

This seems likely to constrain the websites to either generally
popular websites (such as news and sports), or to niche websites that
attract strong followings (such as game fan websites).

An idea I had for finding it brute force, would be to write a program
that has submitted the list to google, and then parses the results to
find results that have the proper word order. This could greatly
narrow down the number of sites that need to be checked. (hundereds
instead of two million...).

So current strategy is to search most of the popular news sites.

I thought the 'colorful pictures' might have been a clever reference
to MSNBC, given the NBC peacock and MS butterfly, but searching for
delaware didn't turn up useful results.

LetterRip

Could it have something to do with litigation against Microsoft (e.g.
the order in which states have sued the company, or withdrawn
antitrust suits, etc.)?

Whoshotjr,

    That's an excellent guess - but according to the link I found
reporting the first 27 states to file, New Jersey is not included
(which is #5 on our list).  Unless it's some sort of pattern?

     Here's the link:
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-208618.html?legacy=cnet

-Rebekah

I am from Canada so I don't know so much about what I am going to
suggest.
Maybe is was the order of signatures somewhere? The last state to
become a state first? The order of population of a certain race?

Maybe the order of internet capability.. I'm not sure.. just throwing
out ideas

I believe I have the answer, but I don't know how to submit it.  Any suggestions ?

uehlein-ga:

To post an official answer you need to be a Google Answers researcher.
If you are not, then you can still post the answer as a comment, but
you won't get any money for it -- just the personal satisfaction of
finding the solution :-)

Two people have claimed that they think they have the answer, and yet
can't figure out how to contact Patrick??
LetterRip

I can't find the info on the net, so I have no idea if I'm right - but
I'm wondering if that could be a list of states in the order they
built auto racing tracks?  I know that at least some of the states at
the beginning of the list had tracks very early on - if the boss is a
racing fan, he might have come across the info somewhere.

The question is reposted here:
https://answers.google.com/answers/main?cmd=threadview&id=66398

FYI: The reposted question is at: 

https://answers.google.com/answers/main?cmd=threadview&id=66398

Great minds!

Sorry I just wanted to be the 100th comment.  Keep up the good work.

any word on what the 21st state is? are the states released on the 7th
of each month? If not, what dates are they released,and who has
authority over those dates? I thinking that maybe August 7 (when
Patrick released Maryland) could have something to do with a specific
event that happened on August 7, of some year in Maryland, and then
say on Sept 7, that event happened in the 21st state, etc

probonopublico does not have a chance

in beating this one

Oh yes he does!

Not just yet

Dear probonopublico
I will of course let you know the moment this happens-  Kemlo

Up-to-date info is online at www.Lex.Net/puzzle -- which includes an
animated list of the order in which the states were added.  MOST
informative.

The complete list of states is now:

1. Delaware 
2. Connecticut 
3. Massachusetts 
4. Rhode Island 
5. New Jersey 
6. Illinois 
7. Wisconsin 
8. Texas 
9. Arkansas 
10. Louisiana 
11. Indiana 
12. Ohio 
13. Iowa 
14. Arizona 
15. Alabama 
16. Mississippi 
17. Florida 
18. Minnesota 
19. West Virginia 
20. Maryland
21. Pennsylvania
22. Georgia 
23. Kentucky 
24. North Carolina 
25. Tennessee
26. Virginia 
27. South Carolina

I've been reading this thread for a while and I took a look at the
website, and now I can't help but wonder if this is some kind of
elaborate hoax.  Post a question on google answers for the maximum $
amount, knowing that no one will get it right, then once they have
everyone's interest sparked, create a website where you can send a 4$
donation for 'charity' - voluntarily of course... sounds fishy to me. 
Anyone have any proof that this is the real deal?  Just seams unlikely
that the millions of people who have probably seen this haven't found
an answer yet...   Just something to ponder.