The longest day of the year

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Comments: 4   (latest 13 hours later)

Tagged: calendar, martin gardner, trivia, puzzles


Today is the longest day of the year! And so is tomorrow!

Yes, I know the equinox was two days ago. Nonetheless:
    WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER TWENTY-THIRD
    THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER TWENTY-FOURTH

[ed: not "twenty-second" -- thanks, Elizabeth!]

A tie, as you see, with 29 letters each. Or 31 symbols if you count the punctuation. Which I do; surely TWENTY-THIRD beats SEVENTEENTH by a hyphen?

The ideal candidate would be a WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER TWENTY-SEVENTH. But we won't have one of those until 2017.

For runners-up this year, we have several candidates:
    WEDNESDAY, JANUARY TWENTY-EIGHTH
    WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY TWENTY-FIFTH
    SATURDAY, FEBRUARY TWENTY-EIGHTH
    TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER TWENTY-SECOND
    SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER TWENTY-SEVENTH
    SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER TWENTY-SIXTH
    WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER TWENTY-EIGHTH
    WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER TWENTY-FIFTH
    SATURDAY, NOVEMBER TWENTY-EIGHTH

Those are 30 symbols each. Much too common, really.

Let's stick with discussing today (and tomorrow). I would propose a new title for these two interesting days -- the ONLY 2009 DAYS WHICH NEED 31 SYMBOLS. Unfortunately my paradoctor is running towards me, waving some sort of paper and screaming, so I'll have to break this post off and find out what she wants.




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