on "mathematical" holidays.

apparently there are hosts of mathematics-themed days. today i learned from the livejournal mathematics community that i missed out on international square root day.

more accurately, i missed one of this century's square root days. they didn't mean what i thought they meant.

[a link to a related article]

this causes increasing ridiculousness.

for example, march 16th is sqrt(10) day, in the same sense as how march 14 is "Pi Day" and february 78th (or april 12th) is "e Day." on the other hand, "Pi/2 Day" is january 57th (or february 26th).

at any rate, today shouldn't be some square root day. if mathematicians have any taste at all, today would be golden ratio day: up to rounding,

φ = [1 + sqrt(5)]/2 ~ 1.62

and this corresponds to january 62nd, or march 3rd.