I don't know the answer. I would log all the events
that occur when you do both (using either MsgBox or Debug>print) and see if
they differ.

Excel's VBA help says....

"To select  a cell or a range of cells, use the Select method. To make a
single cell the active cell, use the activate  method."

HA...but that still leaves a little pretzel logic to be deciphered, I guess?

As I know...the difference between two could be understand by below example.

If you need to perform an operation on a specific sheet, you do
Worksheets("Sheet1").Select
Operation will take place perfectly does not matter which sheet  you had
active.

But in another case you perform the operation after activating the sheet and
you use.
Worksheets("Sheet1").Activate

"Worksheets("Sheet1").Select"will simply activate  to that sheet, then what is
the use of "Worksheets("Sheet1").activate"
I think we need to work around more what do u feel Dian ?
Somewhere, I found that it's useful when you will make your excel sheet  as
ADD-Ins....As there is not sheet to activated B'coz it's hidden..
Once I revel this topic more I'l post..

Try the following:

Sub Test()
'
Range("A1:C5").Select
Range("B2").Activate
End Sub

Don't know why you would like to do something like this, however it
gave me a better understanding of the difference between Select and
Activate.

I really not able to understand, Why every one is replying on range
object...the question raised on Worksheet's Select/Activate methods.

Here the REAL difference between these two statements
Sheets("Sheet1").Select and Sheets("Sheet1).Activate

Lets say, you would have "Sheet2" as a hidden sheet,
and have "Sheet1" as a non-hidden(visible) sheet.

The REAL difference is this:
For "Sheet2", you can do Sheets("Sheet2").Activate
but cannot do Sheets("Sheet2").Select
because "Sheet2" is hidden.

For "Sheet1", you can do Sheets("Sheet1").Activate
and also do Sheets("Sheet1").Select
because "Sheet1" is non-hidden(visible) sheet.

It's pretty similar to my last post about ADD-Ins.

I believe you will find that the question was about selecting/activating sheets,
not ranges.

I've been having a play with this and have yet to find a difference - at the
sheet level.