March is math holiday month, today is square root day!

In addition to Pi day (3/14), we're also in the middle of Square Root Day!

Square root day is held on the date that both the day and the month are both a square root of the last two digits of the year; so this year it’s March 3rd, 2009 (3/3/09). Celebrating is easy. When eating your all important three square meals don't forget your root vegetables like potatoes, turnips, beets, carrots, or parsnips; but remember to cut them quadrilaterally. Date squares, or any other square really, will also make an excellent dessert. After your meal have a try at square dancing, or if that’s not your cup of tea head to your local elementary school yard for a round of square ball. Although in truth the most perfect square root day activity is, of course, the magic square. Remember to get you fill though since the next time you can celebrate is April 4th 2016.

March is math month with pi day and square root day (Thanks, Scott!)

(Image: IMG_3973, a Creative Commons Attribution photo from Youngthousands' Flickr stream)

Previously:

Discussion

Take a look at this

#1 posted by Anonymous , March 3, 2009 12:03 PM

Haha, loving the square root photo.

#2 posted by infinity , March 3, 2009 12:10 PM

um. so in 2010, we celebrate square root day in the month sqrt(2) * sqrt(5) and the day sqrt(2) * sqrt(5)?

or do we only celebrate square root day in years whose last two digits are the squares of integers (like '01, '04, '09, '16, '25, '36, '49, '64 and '81)?

and what is month 0 if we're going to celebrate it in '00?

#3 posted by The Unusual Suspect , March 3, 2009 12:41 PM

Infinity, your angle is right -- you've cornered Cory, and proven that this post is strictly Squaresville. Four points to you, sir!

#4 posted by Anonymous , March 3, 2009 1:21 PM

And in Australia you can try rooting a square.

#5 posted by dculberson , March 3, 2009 1:26 PM

"Remember to get you fill though since the next time you can celebrate is April 4th 2016."

Reading comprehension is fun.

#6 posted by Tenn , March 3, 2009 3:05 PM

For three years, on the fourteenth, I spent my neurotic math teacher's class deriving Pi, doing various excessively complicated formulas with Pi, etc etc.

Thank FSM I don't have him this year. Yay square root photo!

#7 posted by KWillets , March 3, 2009 3:14 PM

There was another square root day 6 days ago and you missed it.

#8 posted by Andrew Denny

, March 3, 2009 3:19 PM

Did you know that this week is 'National Pie Week' in the UK?

It's a silly PR invention, but I wonder if they heard of Pi day thought 'I'll have a whole week of pie'!

#9 posted by Anonymous , March 3, 2009 3:29 PM

Don't forget Alexander Grothendieck's birthday on March 28th.

#10 posted by echonomist , March 3, 2009 3:54 PM

As a devout Pythagorean, I don't celebrate Pi day...

#11 posted by sloot , March 3, 2009 5:37 PM

Pi day bugs me. Pi moment should be on March 4th at 9:20:41.76337 am.

(.14 of March is not March 14th)

#12 posted by cathodexray , March 3, 2009 7:46 PM

also: TODAY is the beginning of World Math Day, where students around the world compete with one another.

link to world math day homepage

thanks for pointing out these important holidays! my students (i'm a math teacher) always participate in some activity for these days, and it brings out their inner nerd. they're writing math songs right now, and researching female mathematicians for women's history month (which is also march!).

and don't forget the lesser pi day, pi approximation day, every year on 07/22. start planning your events now!

#13 posted by Anonymous , March 3, 2009 8:21 PM

Square root day is fortunately valid for both sides of the Atlantic i.e m/d = d/m. But do the British and the Commonwealth celebrate Pi Day on the 31st of April?

#14 posted by pAULbOWEN , March 4, 2009 5:16 AM

#13 I can confirm that Pi Moment in the Commonwealth is at approximately .735 seconds before 2 a.m. on the 31st of April.

SLOOT: sorry if I'm being thick - I don't understand how you get 3.14159265 out of that. Could you be bothered to explain?

#15 posted by Narual , March 4, 2009 7:38 AM

Hey... that looks like a tree at the Vieques (a small island off the coast of Puerto Rico) airport:
http://yougiveloveabad.name/gallery/v/puertorico2008/DSCN3044.JPG.html
http://yougiveloveabad.name/gallery/v/puertorico2008/DSCN3045.JPG.html

#16 posted by Scary_UK , March 4, 2009 7:59 AM

Maths

#17 posted by Caroline , March 4, 2009 8:27 AM

@4: And in Soviet Russia, square roots you?

#18 posted by adamnvillani , March 4, 2009 1:32 PM

#16: Are you trying to correct us? Yes, British usage differs from North American usage. "Maths" isn't more correct, it's just more British.

#19 posted by Scary_UK , March 5, 2009 6:24 AM

Maths is correct, it's a plural.

You don't study 'mathematic' at school do you?

#20 posted by arkizzle , March 5, 2009 7:09 AM

Colloquialisation fight!

#21 posted by adamnvillani , March 5, 2009 9:09 AM

Do Brits only play one "sport?" Where did you subjects of the Queen find an "f" in the word "lieutenant?" And what's up with BBC newsreaders saying "negociate?" Don't try to make sense of the language; it is what it is. Neither one of us pronounces the k nor the e in the word knife. But mathematics shortens to "math" in North America and to "maths" in Britain. Neither one is more correct than the other.

I thought we had settled the issue of you redcoats having any dominion over us in 1783. (I know you didn't get the message and we had to make you realize it for good 20 years later.)