Now you’ve got me thinking about this again and I’m never going to get any work done
Wacky idea: could it have something to do with the pattern of stars on the American flag? (e.g. name each star reading across, and then go back and list off the stars reading down …) That could account for the “48 or 50” thing. It would also mean that Alaska and Hawaii would be the last two in the list of 50.
Then again, since the number of stars in each row is different for the two versions of the flag, it probably would not be possible to get the same sequence for both the 48-star flag and the 50-star flag.
Since the answer could have 48 or 50 states, numbers 49 and 50 must be irrelevant to the answer, otherwise the sequence would have to branch somewhere. And assuming that the organizer is willing to give the entire sequence if necessary (at which point you’d have to give only the logic to win the prize), the sequence must be identical through the whole list of 48, or else he’d have to start posting two flags each month when the sequence branches. (Does that make sense to anyone else?)
So the obvious assumption to make there is that it has something to do with the contiguous 48, with Alaska and Hawaii tacked on at the end. But maybe that’s just a trick.
Delaware might get a disproportionate share because of all the incorporations and Connecticut gets a lot of mail because a lot of insurance premiums payments are mailed there.
I assume you mean to list them by the order they were admitted to the union. Doesn’t work. Top of the list:
Delaware Pennsylvania
New Jersey
Georgia
Connecticut
Those middle three rule out even the first row matching up with the sequence.
There were naval ships in Revolutionary times named Delaware and Connecticut. The first Massachusetts didn’t show up until the late 1800s, though, so that’s pretty much out. Could be when the latest namesake of each was commissioned/decommissioned, though.
I think it may be relevant that the three smallest states in area rank in the top four of this list. You’d think Hawaii ought to be in there, but other than Arizona, all states are from the eastern half of the country.
It has been stated that it’s a list from a newspaper (likely USA Today) so it’s probably not a trick along the lines of the date (not year) admitted to the union or something “puzzle-like.”
It’s probably something like consumption of red wine or most soft ball leagues per capita.
-highest rate of farmland preservation per capita
Couldn’t find any info
OK, I’ll do the others later, but I don’t think it’ll be as complicated as that. I don’t think that it will involve some esoteric and frequently changing statistic, it’ll be something that in the end will make us go :smack:.
I like to think that Iowa is in the western half, since most people divide it by the Mississippi. However, the fact that the vast majority is in the east should mean something. I’d think that it has nothing to do with any sort of farming.
My WAG is that it may be “age of consent”. I remember reading somewhere years ago that Delaware had the lowest age of consent in the nation (y’know, the age that one ceases to be “jailbait”)…
OK, here’s my two cents, and a possibility if anyone wants to look it up.
That the answer may be 48 or 50 states does not automatically mean, as JayLa is guessing, that it could be both (although I can’t rule that out, either). It could simply mean that the final list, already completed and posted somewhere, has 48 states in the list or it has 50 states in the list, but he isn’t going to tell us which it is until somebody solves the puzzle. Then we’ll know which it is.
My WAG: the clues indicate it is probably sports related and “the answer was published in a publication with ‘many colorful pictures’”. This could be a SPORTS MAGAZINE, such as Sports Illustrated.
I seem to recall an issue a few years back where they had an article that listed the top athletes throughout history (well, modern 20th century history, anyway) from each state. I used to save my copies of SI, but don’t anymore. I don’t remember exactly, but perhaps they also had a compiled list placing all those athletes (the 10 from each state) in order. Perhaps this list of states corresponds to that in some way.
I tried going to SI’s website (the answer is posted on the internet, after all) and tried to search for this article but came up with nothing.
I’m afraid I don’t want to expend any more time on this, other than to submit this post.
But if this leads to the answer and someone wins a bunch of money because of me, I won’t refuse a thank-you token of appreciation!
I dunno, I’m pretty sure Hawaii’s legal boinking age is still 14.
OTOH, there was a bill brought before the governor that wanted to raise the age (to 16, I think), but was initially vetoed since the bill, as presented, had violations rated as a class C(?) felony, and the governor thought that 30 years in prison was a pretty harsh punishment for having sex with a 15 year old.
Anyway, last I heard, HI was still 14, which I would hope would put it in the top 20 in the list.
I agree that the fact that the small states are so high on the list has some sort of significance. My first thought was population density, but as well as being too obvious it’s just not right. New Jersey is #1 in that category.
However, I’m willing to bet it has to do with some sort of ration–per capita, per square mile, something like that.
Not decommissioned. The Arizona is still in active service, officially, at least.
The “small states up front” and the “mostly eastern states” observations are, of course, related: There are very few small states in the West. Any “small states” explanation has to cope with Texas being number 8, though. If it’s something per area, then Texas has a heck of a lot of whatever it is. My guess is that it’s something with a bias towards eastern states, and the fact that many eastern states are small is a coincidence.
Hence, the first clever thought I had - average county size. Texas has an unusually large number of counties. Unfortunately, Rhode Island is smaller than Delaware and has more counties.
The “bias to the east, independent of size” supposition has a troubling feature, too - New York and Pennsylvania haven’t appeared, though the first five are their neighbors, and they would likely share many traits biased to those states. NY and PA, of course, are larger eastern states.
I googled for a bit but couldn’t find anything listing state weather statistics. Could it be weather related? Temperature, precipitation, wind, lightning strikes, etc.
A WAG on why the answer could have either 48 or 50 states is that states #48, 49, and 50 could have the same statistic, so it wouldn’t matter if you listed the other two as long as one of the three was #48.
