Sunday Times Teaser 2709 – Around America
By Victor Bryant
The two letter abbreviations for the 51 US States are:
AK AL AR AZ CA CO CT DC DE FL
GA HI IA ID IL IN KS KY LA MA
MD ME MI MN MO MS MT NC ND NE
NH NJ NM NV NY OH OK OR PA RI
SC SD TN TX UT VA VT WA WI WV
WY
I have written different letters once each around a circle in such a way that when any two adjacent letters are read clockwise they form one of the above abbreviations. One of my letters in R and no longer sequence of letters is possible.
What are my letters reading clockwise starting with R?
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It’s only fair to warn your readers over at that *other* site of yours that ALL the letters have to be different.
I could also provide a simpler infinite series, by the way, if it weren’t for that. How about NMNMNMNMNM … ?
I spent eight hours on it before I noticed that myself. Half a day wasted, and I wouldn’t want anyone else to do likewise.
My apologies, Peter, this was my mistake – I fear I did the rewrite in too much of a hurry as I had very little time.
Not at all. I should have made it clear I made my misreading of the original ST text and wasted so much of my time before I saw your version at all. “All my own work,”
The puzzle in the Sunday Times (both paper and website) is clearly about an imaginary America where DC and NI are states and NJ is not.