Thursday, April 05, 2007

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Apr 8): I'll State for the Record that I'm No Fool

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Apr 8): I'll State for the Record that I'm No Fool:
Q: Take the names of two U.S. States, mix them all together, then rearrange the letters to form the names of two other U.S. States. What states are these?
I had the answer to this puzzle after a few minutes of thinking but thought I must have missed something. The answer seemed like an oversight on Will's part. I even spent time writing a few Excel macros to find 1225 combinations of the 50 states (50 x 49 / 2, excluding duplicates), sort the letters alphabetically then find matches. All that effort was overkill, because it brought me back to the original "simple" answer I had at the beginning. Next time I'll focus on the date the puzzle is aired, rather than when the answer will be announced.

Edit: Sure enough, there is only one set of four states that answer the puzzle. And they are the first four I thought of. This was obviously an April Fool's joke to make us think the puzzle was much more complicated than it really is.
A: NORTH CAROLINA + SOUTH DAKOTA
= SOUTH CAROLINA + NORTH DAKOTA

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