In praise of … Ron Gordon

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/11/in-praise-of-ron-gordon-consecutive-date

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Anyone writing the date today may have noticed it was pleasingly and unusually consecutive: 11/12/13. That doesn't happen a lot – in fact, it won't happen again for<strong> </strong>90 years. The calendar has to yomp through the best part of a century until the number of the year is once more just one ahead of the month. This tiny imposition of a new pattern on top of the existing manmade arrangement of dates is unexpectedly but widely satisfying, as Ron Gordon, an American maths teacher, discovered when he started alerting the rest of the world to its serendipity. It's been a slow burn hobby, as by their very nature the arithmetically interesting dates occur only infrequently. Some might dismiss number spotting as nothing more than a preoccupation for the serially empty headed. But it might also be the start of a beautiful friendship with number, the kernel of the digital age. Next, square root day. That'll be 4/4/16. It's in the diary.

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