June 9 Identified as Mathiest Day of the Year

Falls Church, VA, June 08, 2012 --(PR.com)-- Every date contains three numbers — month, date, and year — but June 9 has been identified as the mathiest date of 2012. When written in the form mm/dd/yy, June 9 becomes 6/9/12, and that sequence of three numbers has several interesting properties:

· The numbers form an arithmetic sequence; that is, the difference between numbers is constant.
· Each number is a multiple of 3.
· The numbers themselves are interesting: 6 is a perfect number (its proper factors have a sum of 6); 9 is a square number (3^2 = 9); and 12 is the least abundant number (its proper factors have a sum greater than 12).

The mathiest date was determined by examining dates in the form mm/dd/yy and assigning points based on characteristics. Points were awarded if all digits were even, if the date read the same upside-down on a calculator, or if the month, day, and year formed an arithmetic sequence, for instance.

The number of points awarded for each characteristic was based on its likelihood. Dates in which all three numbers are even occur regularly—about 35 times per year, on average. Consequently, those dates received some points, but not as many as dates in which the three numbers form a Pythagorean triple, which only happens 50 times a century. Points for other characteristics were awarded similarly.

When the points were tallied for all of this year’s dates, June 9 was the top scorer.

Other interesting dates in 2012 include:

· January 20: When written in the form 01/20/12, the string 012 is repeated.
· March 6: The numbers 3/6/12 form a geometric sequence, where each number is double the preceding number.
· December 24: The sum of the digits is 1 + 2 + 2 + 4 + 1 + 2 = 12, and when the month, day and year are concatenated to form 122,412 and then divided by the sum of the digits, the result is 10,201, a palindrome that also happens to be a perfect square (1012).

“If you like calendars and numbers, it’s a fortunate time to be alive,” said Patrick Vennebush, a certified number nerd and citizen researcher who identified the mathiest date. “Noteworthy number patterns within dates are far more common near the beginning of a century than at the end.”

About Patrick Vennebush:
Patrick Vennebush is a developer of tools for teachers and author of Math Jokes 4 Mathy Folks. He manages online projects for the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.