Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Today Is The "Real Day"

Just a reminder to those who have been seduced by the modern custom of three-day weekends: Today is George Washington's "real" birthday. It's a cool day this year. 2/22/11. Can't you imagine the insertion of a right parenthesis followed by a vinculum over the 22, indicating a simple division problem? Sorry about that. I see numbers everywhere. Besides, Darwin, whom I admire greatly, said, "It seems to me that mathematics endows one with something like a sixth sense."
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2 comments:

  1. GregFebruary 22, 2011 at 9:09 PM

    This is a great pic - brings back memories of summer.

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  2. SierrosmithFebruary 24, 2011 at 9:03 AM

    As an astronomer I would be remiss if I didn't point out that on the day that George Washington was born, the calendar actually said February 11, 1732, not Feb. 22. The Julian calendar was used in Britain and its colonies until 1752 when the Georgian calendar was adopted. The Julian calendar did not account for the fact that a year is about 365 and a quarter days long, so it was increasingly out of sync with the seasons. When we adopted the Georgian calendar we leapt forward 11 days and added 97 extra leap-days in every 400 years.

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