Count on today’s alignment of the calendar to add some much-needed excitement to the lives of at least a few maths geeks.

Today is Square Root Day, a rare holiday that occurs when the day and the month are both the square root of the last two digits of the current year. Numerically, 3 March 2009, can be expressed as 3/3/09, or mathematically as √9 = 3, or 3² = 3 × 3 = 9.

“These days are like calendar comets, you wait and wait and wait for them, then they brighten up your day — and poof — they’re gone,” Ron Gordon, a teacher from Redwood City, California, who organised a contest intended to publicise the event, told the Associated Press. The prize, of course, is $339.

Celebrants are expected to mark the occasion by cutting root vegetables into squares or preparing other foods in the shape of the square root symbol.

Square Root Day occurs only nine times in a century. The last one occurred on 2 February 2004, and the next will occur in seven years on 4 April 2016.

Square Root Day isn’t the only ‘humorous’ holiday celebrated in the maths world.

Pi Day is observed each 14 March (3.14), while Pi Approximation Day falls on 22 July (pi is roughly equal to 22/7). The first Pi Day was observed in 1988 by staff at the San Francisco Exploratorium, who walked around in circles. Maths dudes: partying hard since ancient Greek times.

Source: CNET News