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Numeric Palindromic Dates · 14 March 2020


There was some hullaballoo about 02/02/2020 being a palindromic date. (Probably right around the beginning of February. But even if I was just imagining said hullabaloo, I did write a blog post about it a year before it happened.)


Apparently, a palindromic date had not happened for a while. And apparently, 02/02/2020 was special in that it is palindromic regardless of whether you put the year first and even if you swap the day and month from however you do it (more on that later). But I know this. There will be another one next year.


Numeric palindromes are not that uncommon. Even in dates. Especially, if you are judicious with leading zeroes or in leaving out the 19s and 20s (or other century numbers). Numbers and dates are funny that way. You can do all sorts of things to make them seem like palindromes. And if you consider that there is more than one way to write a date numerically, there are even more possibilities to date palindromes. Think about it. In other places in the world, they put the year first, then the month, then the day. And in other places, it goes, year, day, month. And in still other places it is day, month, year. (I might have made one of them up, but I do not think so.) Which is why I do not get very excited about palindromic dates. (Actually, I already wrote about at least one of those special dates, but that was because it was 8/8/8 or 9/9/9 or some other crazy date like that.)


Perhaps a more interesting date to consider a palindrome is December 02, 2021. After all, it will be palindromic whether you write it month, day, year (12/02/2021) or year, month, day (2021/12/02). That is pretty special. Being a palindromic date on at least two continents. (But I guess not quite as special as the one in February (02/02/2020, 2020/02/02) which was palindromic pretty much everywhere.) Then again, I do not know that people get too excited about palindromic dates anyway. After all, you can make just about any date a palindrome if you are willing to leave out zeroes or put in zeroes or manipulate the numbers some way to get that numeric palindrome. (Which I already mentioned.)


I guess it is just having fun with numbers.


Well, that is about all I have for today. Not much more left to say except maybe to give a few numeric date palindromes. So here are just a few that I have come up with:


1/1/1; 2/2/2; 3/3/3 … 9/9/9
1/2/1; 1/3/1; 1/4/1; 1/5/1 … 1/9/1; 2/1/2; 3/1/3 …
10/02/2001
11/02/2011
12/02/2021
12/1/21
12/11/21
12/22/21
2021/12/02 (2021 December 02 or 2021 February 12, depending on date format)
2/2/22; 3/2/23; 4/2/24; 5/2/25; 6/2/26; 7/2/27; 8/2/28; 9/2/29


I hope that I did not burst anybody’s palindrome bubble. Especially, when it comes to dates. After all, they are still special. Especially, when you put the time in there too (02/02/2020 02:02:20.20 or if not to the 1/100th of a second, 02/02/20 02:20:20). Ah, but that is a completely different story. One that I am sure never to write. (Of course, now that I say never… But again, that is a different story.)


When all is said and done, I will always like palindromes. Even numeric. I will just not get too worked up about them. After all, I am sure never to have one on my birthday or any special day like that. But I know there will be one next year (palindromic date, that is). (And the year after that too.)

© 2020 Michael T. Miyoshi

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