I was driving into work today, and when I turned on my radio I heard that it was Square Root Day. Except I missed the part where they were explaining what it is, and all I heard was that it won’t happen again for a while, and I thought to myself, “Huh? But isn’t EVERY day a square root day, since 3 is the square root of 9, and tomorrow, the 4th, will be the square root of 16?” And I was completely confused.
Then just a few minutes ago, my friend Cheryl popped into my office and said, “HAPPY SQUARE ROOT DAY!” And she was able to explain this holiday: it’s because it’s 3-3-09, and 3 is the square root of 09. Then the light shown shone down and angles sang* and it all made sense. And the radio was right about the rarity — the next one isn’t until 4-4-16.
And as soon as Cheryl left, my student Adele popped into my office and apologized for overhearing our conversion (nice of her, but unnecessary — my office is right off of the Math Center and I listen to student conversations all the time). Anyway, Adele passed along that she also had heard about Square Root Day! It turns out that it’s all over the internet. Apparently you’re supposed to eat root vegetables cut into squares. This might explain why it’s not as celebrated a holiday as Pi(e) Day. So without further ado,
Happy Square Root Day!
Just so I’m not behind on another holiday, Thursday and Saturday are Odd Days, since 3-5-9 and 3-7-9 are odd numbers in increasing order. Celebrate away!
*I started to write “angels” and misspelled it, but decided that angles singing was more appropriate.
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