mmar@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (Mitchell Marks) (08/20/85)
I just realized that I never gave the answer to a puzzle I posted a few
weeks ago. (Nobody else gave it a try, anyway.) Sorry.
The following is a restatement, not a quotation -- I don't have
it stored anywhere.
The question: What do Xenia (Ohio) and New York (NY) have in common,
a world distinction not shared by any other U.S. city? That is, there are a
number of cities in the world with this distinction, but the only two in
the U.S. are Xenia and New York.
Answer: each is the largest city in the world for a given letter
of the alphabet. There are problems with transliteration, etc, but in principleyou could come up with a list of 26: the largest city whose name (rendered
in our alphabet) begins with A, the largest for B, etc. Only two out of
these 26 would be in the U.S., New York and Xenia.
The puzzle was posed and answered a couple of years ago by Isaac
Asimov. He attempted to give the whole list of 26, but I don't have that
available. Undoubtedly some changes would be needed to update it, but
I'm sure New York has retained its place.
--
-- Mitch Marks @ UChicago
...ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!mmarmsb@lsuc.UUCP (Mark Brader) (09/07/85)
Mitchell Marks (mmar@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP) writes: > I just realized that I never gave the answer to a puzzle I posted a few > weeks ago. (Nobody else gave it a try, anyway.) Sorry. > The following is a restatement, not a quotation -- I don't have > it stored anywhere. > The question: What do Xenia (Ohio) and New York (NY) have in common, > a world distinction not shared by any other U.S. city? That is, there are a > number of cities in the world with this distinction, but the only two in > the U.S. are Xenia and New York. > > Answer: each is the largest city in the world for a given letter > of the alphabet. ... > The puzzle was posed and answered a couple of years ago by Isaac Asimov. I tried that one on a trivia-loving acquaintance named Mike Barrett, and he suggested that there should be several cities in China beginning with X that are larger than Xenia ... since China CHANGED THE SPELLING of many places. Sure enough, he was right. So that puzzle bites the dust. Sorry, Mitch. I was curious enough to run through an appendix in The New International Atlas and construct a version of the complete list of 26. For each city I used the usual Anglicized form if one exists and was given in the atlas, otherwise the transliterated form given in the atlas. I preferred metropolitan area populations to city-proper populations where the city was the center of a metropolitan area. Rand McNally, the publishers of the atlas, use their own definition of metropolitan area, so as to be consistent from one country to another. But the dates of the population figures vary from 1980 for the USA back to 1971, and 1958 for China; so there are likely a number of wrong entries. I did it quickly, too, and may have simply made errors. (Notice that New York is NOT the only city in the USA on my list; but I could easily believe that another list using different criteria would make it the only one. There are many fairly close decisions.) Alexandria 2,700,000 Buenos Aires 9,300,000 Calcutta 9,100,000 Detroit 4,635,000 East Berlin 1,118,142 Frankfurt am Main 1,865,000 Guadalajara 2,150,000 Ho Chi Minh City 2,750,000 Istanbul 3,700,000 Jakarta 4,900,000 Karachi 4,500,000 London 11,065,000 Mexico City 12,450,000 New York 16,625,000 Osaka 15,000,000 Paris 9,350,000 Qingdao 1,144,000 Rio de Janeiro 8,235,000 Shanghai 10,820,000 Tokyo 25,200,000 Ufa 980,000 Victoria 3,975,000 Washington 3,185,000 Xi'an 1,368,000 Yokohama 2,729,433 Zibo* 875,000 *Population includes some surrounding rural land. I was going to include the countries on the list, but perhaps some of them are not so obvious, and I leave them as a puzzle. I will post the list again, with countries, in another message next week. I'll also include the dates of the data, which I omit this time only because places in the same country tend to have data of the same date. Also, which city that is on the list is also counted as part of the metropolitan area of another city on the list? This, too, will be answered in the followup. Mark Brader
msb@lsuc.UUCP (Mark Brader) (09/09/85)
Summary: Urer'f gur yvfg jvgu pbhagevrf vapyhqrq. Nyrknaqevn, Rtlcg 2,700,000 Ohrabf Nverf, Netragvan 9,300,000 Pnyphggn, Vaqvn 9,100,000 Qrgebvg, HFN 4,635,000 Rnfg Oreyva, Rnfg Treznal 1,118,142 Senaxsheg nz Znva, Jrfg Treznal 1,865,000 Thnqnynwnen, Zrkvpb 2,150,000 Ub Puv Zvau Pvgl, Ivrg Anz 2,750,000 Vfgnaohy, Ghexrl 3,700,000 Wnxnegn, Vaqbarfvn 4,900,000 Xnenpuv, Cnxvfgna 4,500,000 Ybaqba, HX 11,065,000 Zrkvpb Pvgl, Zrkvpb 12,450,000 Arj Lbex, HFN 16,625,000 Bfnxn, Wncna 15,000,000 Cnevf, Senapr 9,350,000 Dvatqnb, Puvan 1,144,000 Evb qr Wnarveb, Oenmvy 8,235,000 Funatunv, Puvan 10,820,000 Gbxlb, Wncna 25,200,000 Hsn, HFFE 980,000 Ivpgbevn, Ubat Xbat 3,975,000 Jnfuvatgba, HFN 3,185,000 Kv'na, Puvan 1,368,000 Lbxbunzn, Wncna# 2,729,433 Mvob*, Puvan 875,000 *Cbchyngvba vapyhqrf fbzr fheebhaqvat eheny ynaq. #Nyfb pbhagrq va Gbxlb zrgebcbyvgna nern. Znex Oenqre Fbeel, V nppvqragnyyl guerj bhg gur svyr jvgu gur prafhf qngrf va vg. Vs nalobql pnerf, fraq zr znvy.