Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Calendar Trick


Want to know a simple memory trick to astound friends, family, and co-workers? Okay. How about this: tell them you know the day of the week for any date in the year 2008. They’ll say, all right, September 26. You’ll respond: Friday. They’ll check, confirm this as true, be puzzled, and try again. March 16. You’ll smile and say Sunday, and they’ll stand there, mouth agape, and demand how you know this esoteric information.

It’s really quite simple. All it entails is memorizing a 12-digit number.

For dates in 2008, that number is 632641637527.

To make that easy to remember, break it up into groups of three: 632 – 641 – 637 – 527.

What does this number represent, and how does it tell you the week day of any date in 2008? Simple. Each digit stands for the first Sunday in each consecutive month in the year. So, January 6 is a Sunday, as is February 3, March 2, April 6, May 4, June 1, etc. Get it?

Now, when your coworker wants to know what day Christmas falls on this year, you’ll be able to figure it out. The 7th is the first Sunday in December, so add 2 weeks and you get to the 21st as a Sunday. Add four days to that and you come to Thursday. Christmas, December 25, 2008, falls on a Thursday.

Amazing!

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