2/2/22: Happy Palindrome Day!

Besides being the second day of the Lunar New Year and the second day of the month, today’s date when written in the form of D/M/YY also represents a palindrome. What exactly is a palindrome and what does it have to do with math?

According to Wikipedia, a palindrome is a word, number, phrase, or other sequence of characters which reads the same backward as forward, such as madam or racecar. ​​There are also numeric palindromes, including date/time stamps using short digits 11/11/11 11:11 and long digits 02/02/2020. Palindromes in dates tend to be popular to mark certain life events such as wedding anniversaries. Births on such dates are even more unique and can sometimes be reported in the news!

In terms of math, an easy palindrome pattern for students to try would be using the number 11. Most students would have realised while learning the 11 times table that 11 × 11 = 121. What is more interesting is that if he or she tries multiplying 111 × 111, the answer obtained would be 12 321. This pattern continues where 1 111 × 1 111 = 1 234 321 and so on!

Wondering when is the next palindromic date? It is closer than you think! If we flip the written form to M/DD/YY, we can look forward exactly 20 days from now on 2/22/22. Even better, it falls on a Tuesday, or in this case, Twosday!

Did you know? From Primary 1, students at Genius Plus Academy are also exposed to number patterns. Such a ‘topic’ is not explicitly taught in schools but we recognise the importance of developing critical thinking skills and identifying patterns - especially when such questions are dubbed as ‘killer’ questions at the PSLE. That is why we also have a whole workbook dedicated to number patterns so that students have ample practice to master the concepts!