(Square) Woot!

Today, math nerds and aficionados are celebrating a holiday that doesn't happen very often -- Square Root Day. March 3, 2009, is sometimes written 3/3/09, and if you multiply the 3 representing the date by the 3 representing the month, you get 9. And of course, three is the square root of nine.

As the story notes, the most recent Square Root Day was Feb. 2, 2004. The next will be April 4, 2016, and the next one after that May 5, 2025. The gap between Square Root Days increases along the sequence of odd numbers. There were three years between the first this century, in 2001, and the next, in 2004. Then five years between that one and this, and seven years between this one and the next, nine years to the one after that, and so on. The last such holiday in each century is September 9, when the square of the month/day combination is 81.

The story doesn't address whether or not October 10 may be considered a Square Root Day. Obviously, 10 times 10 is 100, which means that in order for that day to be considered, another digit has to be used, and dates are rarely written that way (10/10/100?) I imagine that there is probably some good-natured back and forth between traditionalists and progressives about this issue -- at least, I hope it's good-natured. Math fights are probably not all that attractive.

And having now considered this much math, my brain is requiring me to shut it down to reduce the operating temperature. Probably a good time to write a horror movie, or maybe an episode of How I Met Your Mother.