States List Puzzle

The States List Puzzle was a puzzle created in January 2001 by a group manager at Microsoft. The original intent of the puzzle was that it would be a local office event with every person donating a dollar to a charity pool when they attempted to guess the solution to the puzzle. However, when the solution proved difficult, people began seeking outside sources in attempts to solve the puzzle and there was soon widespread interest on the internet.

The puzzle consisted of a list of states. Every month a new state was added to the list. The solution to the puzzle was to guess what the basis was for the order the states were being added.

Despite hundreds of guesses, no one has publicly succeeded in solving the puzzle. Incorrect guesses that have been made include: the order in which the states ratified the Constitution or a particular amendment; the order in which states adopted state flags or state flowers or founded state universities; the order in which states announced the results of the 2000 Presidential Election; the order of states arranged alphabetically by their state trees, state birds, or state flowers; the order of states arranged by telephone area code or ZIP Code; the order in which the 2000 Olympic torch passed through the states; the order of states ranked by Gross State Product, homicide rates, or chickens per capita; and numerous other possibilities. Due to the fact the puzzle remained unsolved, some people speculated that the puzzle was either a hoax with no legitimate answer or had an answer so obscure it was only known to the puzzle's creator. However, both of these possibilities have been denied. The creator gave three hints to the solution: a. The answer is available on the internet; b. The answer may be either 48 or 50 states; and c. The answer was published in a publication "with many colorful pictures".

In 2003, after 27 states had been listed, the posting were discontinued. It was not stated that the puzzle had been solved or what the solution was.

The list of states in their posted order:
# Delaware
# Connecticut
# Massachusetts
# Rhode Island
# New Jersey
# Illinois
# Wisconsin
# Texas
# Arkansas
# Louisiana
# Indiana
# Ohio
# Iowa
# Arizona
# Alabama
# Mississippi
# Florida
# Minnesota
# West Virginia
# Maryland
# Pennsylvania
# Georgia
# Kentucky
# North Carolina
# Tennessee
# Virginia
# South Carolina

External links

* http://lex.net/puzzle/ - the official site
* http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=50956 - an online discussion of the puzzle
* http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=130383 - another online discussion