2020 Had a Silver Lining for Math Geeks
A year that had more than its share of misery and uncertainty was also interesting numerically.
At least these were interesting in 2020.
Photographer: Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images
They say that hindsight is 20/20, and like many, I can’t wait for 2020 to become hindsight. But for math geeks like me, one thing was sure in a year of so much uncertainty — admittedly something far abstracted from everything that was going on in the world: 2020 was one of the most numerically exciting years in a long time.
The year featured a number of mathematical holidays: Feb. 2 was palindrome-ambigram-Groundhog Day: Its date, 02/02/2020, was a palindrome (meaning it reads the same forward and backward) and an ambigram (it reads the same if you rotate it 180 degrees). This works in month-first, day-first and year-first date conventions.1