Celebrate Square Root Day (No, Seriously)
Hot on the heels of "1234567890" day comes Square Root Day. This rare "holiday" occurs when the day and the month are both the square root of the last two digits of the current year.
So, today can be expressed as 03/03/09 (in Europe or the U.S., for once!). 3 is the square root of 9, so you can see how today would be Square Root Day.
The last Square Root Day was (quite obviously) in 2004 ... 2/2/04 or Groundhog Day, in fact. The next one is 7 years off in 2016 or 4/4/16.
While there's no luck or superstition associate with the day, there is some cash! Ron Gordon, a Redwood City, CA teacher, is running a contest for the biggest Square Root Day celebration.
You can win (wait for it) $339; entries must be in by March 18th, and photos or descriptions to rgordon@seq.org, or mail them to Ron Gordon at P.O. Box 5133, Redwood City, CA, 94063.
While Square Root Day is rare enough, 1234567890 Day is rarer still: it was the day when Unix time, or the number of seconds since the beginning of the "Unix Epoch" at midnight UTC on January 1st, 1970 (not including leap seconds) reached 1234567890.
So, today can be expressed as 03/03/09 (in Europe or the U.S., for once!). 3 is the square root of 9, so you can see how today would be Square Root Day.
The last Square Root Day was (quite obviously) in 2004 ... 2/2/04 or Groundhog Day, in fact. The next one is 7 years off in 2016 or 4/4/16.
While there's no luck or superstition associate with the day, there is some cash! Ron Gordon, a Redwood City, CA teacher, is running a contest for the biggest Square Root Day celebration.
You can win (wait for it) $339; entries must be in by March 18th, and photos or descriptions to rgordon@seq.org, or mail them to Ron Gordon at P.O. Box 5133, Redwood City, CA, 94063.
While Square Root Day is rare enough, 1234567890 Day is rarer still: it was the day when Unix time, or the number of seconds since the beginning of the "Unix Epoch" at midnight UTC on January 1st, 1970 (not including leap seconds) reached 1234567890.
