In case you haven’t heard, we are in the midst of Palindrome Week.
That is, all of the days this week read the same forward and backward, when expressed as numbers: 5-10-15; 5-11-15 and so on. It continues through next Tuesday: 5-19-15.
Back in grade school, we learned about palindromes made with letters. These can include words such as “civic,” or phrases, such as, “Madam, I’m Adam.” But the term applies to any sequence that is the same forward and backward.
Five-digit palindromes occur regularly. Next year we’ll have 6-10-16; 6-11-16 and so on through 6-19-16.
According to Aziz Inan, an engineering professor at University of Portland quoted by the USA TODAY Network, dates may also appear as six- seven- or even eight-digit palindromes. The more numbers, the less often it happens. There will be only 26 seven-digit palindromes this century and 12 eight-digit dates.
Actually, Inan’s name pops up in a lot of reports about palindrome dates. For example, he “discovered” perfect square years — where the numbers equal the square of an integer number. The next such year is 2025, since it equals the square of 45. The last one was 1936, the square of 44. There are also perfect square dates. Coming up: Feb. 26, 2016 and Dec. 22, 2016 (since 2262016 and 12222016 are squares of 1504 and 3496).
While knowing these dates serves no useful purpose, we can all feel a little more “balanced” this week.