A noteworthy event for folks interested in numerology, or just plain odd things, occured in the U.S. last night. At 1:02 AM and three seconds on April 5, 2006, the time and date on digital clocks read 01-02-03-04-05-06. Cool, huh. Happens once a century. The world’s atomic clock timekeepers got all excited. I must confess that I slept through it nonetheless. The rest of the world, which uses the day/month/year format, can enjoy the event on the 4th of May.
You can check out the USNO master clock here – home of the Official source of time for the U.S. Department of Defense.
April 5th, 2006 at 12:16 pm
Dear Fellow Churchillian Mark,
I like the number sequence for today – 01 02 03 etc. Very original and rare.
Doesn’t quite work this side of the pond though, where we are more used to DD/MM/YY sequence at the end!
Comment edited to delete request for phone number and transfer of funds. – JoAnne
Best wishes
Tony
Development Director
Churchill College
Cambridge
April 5th, 2006 at 12:36 pm
Local (San Diego) news programs have been running this story, claiming that 01/02/03/04/05/06 is a one-time-only event. They’re saying it’ll never happen again. Ever.
Of course, it happens every century.
April 5th, 2006 at 1:03 pm
But then again, if you follow the ISO format for dates this already happened on May 6th, 2004
April 5th, 2006 at 1:24 pm
In Europe, it will happen again next month, on May 4th (4.5.6).
In three years, we will also have 12:34:56, 7/8/9. A precise combination of time and date occurs once per history, but the number of equally interesting combinations of time and date occur extremely often.
April 5th, 2006 at 7:11 pm
Dagnabbit. As unimportant as I realize it actually is, I usually like to do something about occasions like this, but it didn’t even occur to me that this one was coming. Oh, well. At least I have the European version to look forward to next month, I guess.
As for 12:34:56 7/8/9…it would be better if it was 12:34:56 7/8/90. But we’ve got another nine decades and change before we get that one again…
April 5th, 2006 at 8:07 pm
In five years, we will also experience 11:11:11 11/11/11 which looks visually more attractive, I think.
April 5th, 2006 at 8:24 pm
Er…eight decades and change, that is. Should have been pretty obvious that 90 - 6
April 5th, 2006 at 8:25 pm
Whoops! The end of my reply got cut off because I used a less-than sign instead of actually typing in "<". (Oddly enough, though, it looked OK in the preview.) Anyway, here’s the full reply I meant to post:
Er…eight decades and change, that is. Should have been pretty obvious that 90 - 6 < 90, but I’m apparently not thinking straight today.
But yeah, 11:11:11 11/11/11 is a good one too, and one that’s coming up much sooner.
April 6th, 2006 at 2:39 am
Sixteen years ago I was taking a driving lesson when the instructor asked me to pull over, she told me to turn the engine off and look at the clock.
It was the 12:34pm and 56 seconds on the 7th August, 1990… or 12:34.56 7/8/90… Once a century.
I was in a beige Mini Metro, near Skelmersdale in Lancashire, since you ask.
April 6th, 2006 at 2:45 am
Yeah! Good ol’ Skelmersdale….. Been a while since I’ve been there.
-cvj
April 6th, 2006 at 6:12 am
Ah Skem – almost as many Scousers as Liverpool itself (not that there’s anything wrong with that). My grandparents lived there when I was growing up.
April 6th, 2006 at 2:13 pm
Skelmersdale: Clifford? Mark? I was there when, as far as I can recall, I was growing up. It is, as they say, a small world. Not that I caught sight of any obviously putative string theorists or comologists. How blind can one be?
April 15th, 2006 at 11:16 am
At 1:02 I was celebrating my birthday! It was a GREAT birthday! I think the science of numbers helped my birthday! Though this sequence may only happen once in a 100 year while, my BIRTHDAY happens every year!
April 15th, 2006 at 8:54 pm
Nothing wrong with scousers, Mark?
You’ve been here too long and have clearly confused Liverpool, NY, with Liverpool, England.