Depending on how you write the date, you might have celebrated a few palindrome days over the last couple of years.

A palindrome is a number, word, or phrase that reads the same backwards and forwards. The longest palindromic word in the Oxford English Dictionary is the onomatopoeic ‘tattarrattat’, coined by James Joyce in Ulysses, which means ‘a knock at the door’.

When it comes to dates, 8/10/2018 stands out. Then there was also last year, when we had a week of palindromes, between September 10 and 19, provided that you write the date ‘month/date/year’.

This Sunday, the palindrome returns, only this time it’s Palindrome Day the world over – an event that only takes place once every 1 000 years.

The Guardian explains:

Britain and the USA organise their dates differently – we write day/month/year, but they insist on month/day/year – which causes confusion and mutual irritation on both sides of the Atlantic.

In Asia, they write the date ‘year/month/date’, so you can see how not every country would have experienced 2018’s Palindrome Day at the same time or at all.

This Sunday, however, all differences can be put aside, because no matter how you write it, the dates align.

In the UK it will be 02.02.2020.

In the US it will be 02.02.2020

In Asia it will be 2020.02.02

I’m not a fan of numbers, generally – they seem to exist just to confuse me – but this is actually pretty cool.

The Brazilian mathematician Inder Taneja, created a magic square to celebrate World Palindrome Day.

In a magic square, the numbers in each row, column and diagonal all add up to the same number. Taneja goes one step further. His 02022020 magic square is also a magic square when read upside down and when read in a mirror. (When in a mirror the 2s become 5s.)

Check it out:

If you were that weirdo who took your phone to the office bathroom to try it out, I salute you.

[source:guardian]