Miss Cellania
Celebrating Square Root Day
by Miss Cellania - March 3, 2009 - 7:35 AM
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Square Root Day is when the month and the day are the square root of the year. It only happens nine times in a century, and today (3-3-09) is one of those days.

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The holiday is the brainchild of Sequoia High (Redwood City, California) driver education teacher Ron Gordon, who enjoys calendar quirks. He’s tried to get schools to celebrate Square Root Day since 1981. Gordon also inspired a celebration of Odd Day on March 5, 2007 (3-5-7). He is giving away a prize of $339 to the person who has the best Square Root Day celebratory event. What can you do to celebrate Square Root Day? Math teachers expect students to calculate square roots. We should do something fun in addition.

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Robert X. Cringely at Infoworld has a plan for celebrating Square Root Day.

I don’t know about you, but I’m planning to celebrate by watching a “SpongeBob SquarePants” marathon while playing with my slide rule.

That’s only the beginning of the many ways you can celebrate Square Root Day. 445_potatoes1.jpg

The established custom is to cut root vegetables (carrots, turnips, radishes) into squares. Actually eating them may be asking too much. But potatoes are roots, aren’t they? Square (or cubic) potatoes can mean only one thing -home fries.

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For dessert you need to make a carrot cake. Square, of course. There are plenty of different recipes, all you have to do is find one that fits the ingredients you have. Enjoy it with some root beer. Oh yes, I’ll have a slice, thank you very much!

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Buy yourself a square root puzzle. You won’t receive it in time to play today, but you’ll be ready for the next holiday in 2016.

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You can play Square Root Clock online. There are plenty of online games that challenge your math skills using square roots, but this is the most photogenic.


Then there’s always a little square root poetry. This example is from Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay (contains spoiler, if you care).

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After all the food and math, grab seven of your friends and have a square dance. Some basic instructions are at Square Dancing 101. Allemande left, 2 by 2! Image by Wikimedia user Deirdre.

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If you are so inclined, you might go looking for a real square root in the world around you. They are kind of rare. Image by Flickr user arsheffield.

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And if that’s not enough fun for you, we’re only a couple of weeks away from Pi Day! But celebrate Square Root Day wisely. The next such holiday will be on April 4, 2016.

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Comments (19)

  1. I’ll be celebrating my wife’s birthday today as well.

    posted by Monk on 3-3-2009 at 9:19 am

  2. Even more important than square roots is the fact that it’s my birthday!

    posted by Jacquilynne on 3-3-2009 at 9:47 am

  3. This reminded me of something we did in HS- MOLE DAY- on October 23. It’s a day to celebrate Avogadro’s Number (6.02 times 10^23) and it really just gets kids into science. Some schools do a ton of stuff…. we had a “molecake” (read: pancake) breakfast at 6:02am, and had to sew all sorts of tiny little moles (i’m not kidding, sewed them!) and had to make a mole video… my friend’s group did the Mole Witch Project… it’s insane! I would love to read an article about that. Check out the link on my name for the official mole day web site. It says that Mole Day 2009′s theme will be the Molear Express, haha.

    posted by Kelly J on 3-3-2009 at 10:53 am

  4. Happy Birthday, Jacquilynne and Mrs. Monk!

    posted by Miss Cellania on 3-3-2009 at 10:54 am

  5. Happy birthday, Jacquilynne. It’s my birthday, too.
    The square root is cool, but I’ve got twice as cool. Or three times cooler. On 3/3/03, I turned 27, or 3X3X3, aka 3 to the 3rd power. Somehow, no one is as impressed with that fact as I am.

    posted by Steven on 3-3-2009 at 10:55 am

  6. Happy birthday, Mrs. Monk, Steven, and Jacquilynne! I have a birthday this month, too! Happy Square root Day, too!

    posted by Sara on 3-3-2009 at 11:28 am

  7. @ Steven, I agree that is cool (6 years late)

    In a moment of shared calendar geekiness with my mother (who is in no way, shape, or form a geek – unlike myself), we celebrated at 12:34 in the afternoon on May 6, 1978 (12:34 5/6/78).

    posted by Diana on 3-3-2009 at 11:38 am

  8. I heard about Square Root Day on the radio(!) on my way to work today, and thought that it was pretty cool. On the other hand, I knew I’d get blank stares from my coworkers if I mentioned it.

    It’s so good to have m_f in my world.

    (Recaptcha: women cheered)

    posted by Betsy on 3-3-2009 at 11:54 am

  9. Is it just me, or is the first 5 in pi backwards?

    And I remember Square Root Day being discussed at school when I was a kid on 9/9/81. Of course, I would have been in 4th grade and we didn’t do anything fun like eat carrot cake or have root beer…

    posted by Jonny on 3-3-2009 at 12:27 pm

  10. the 5 is backwards, Jonny! that’s as far as I have pi memorized, too, which i’m kind of sad about. time to start memorizing, i have a week and a half!

    posted by Gayle on 3-3-2009 at 2:21 pm

  11. Steven, I think it is cool, and I am suitably impressed. Cooler than my upcoming birthday next year. I would like to invite you to my birthday party on 10/10/2010 (10/10/10) when I turn 50…

    posted by Wendy! on 3-3-2009 at 2:26 pm

  12. “I don’t know about you, but I’m planning to celebrate by watching a “SpongeBob SquarePants” marathon while playing with my slide rule.”

    If you put your mind in the gutter… this is the funniest thing I have read in a very long time! It’s even funnier because my son watches it and I have seen every episode, many times.

    Apologies to Mr Cringely. I love his books and column so this is purely all in (mathematical) fun.

    posted by Sarah in CA on 3-3-2009 at 2:54 pm

  13. “We should do something fun in addition.” Very cute, Miss Cellania.

    posted by Judy on 3-3-2009 at 3:35 pm

  14. I’m gathering together all my imaginary friends to celebrate the square root of minus one.

    posted by ZenBlue on 3-3-2009 at 6:55 pm

  15. Shouldn’t pi day be March 14 2016, 3-14-16?

    posted by Steven on 3-3-2009 at 10:51 pm

  16. I retract my last comment, I read it too fast and didn’t realize that the topic returned to square root day. Oops.

    posted by Steven on 3-3-2009 at 10:56 pm

  17. We did Mole Day in high school, too.

    Not math-y, but my driver’s license expires on 11/1/11. Line Line Line Line Line Line Line. I get weird looks when I write my expiration date on checks. It is a palindrome, though. That’s pretty cool.

    Interesting. reCaptcha has some numbers in it that turned out to be the phone number of a collision place about 1 hour from here. Sneaky advertising?

    posted by KT on 3-4-2009 at 12:39 am

  18. This is not really about square root day but about numbers and birthdays…
    There are 6 kids in my family, 4 of us girls, and 2 boys. 3 out of 4 girls have birthdays that fall on the 22nd of the month. But then my birthday falls on the 3rd. I have always felt left out. But my mom would go, “Oh you know it’s ok, your brother’s birthdays are on the 8th and one is on the 24th. So if you multiply your bday, 3, to your brother’s, 8, that is equal to 24″. And I’m like, Ok, I still belong to this family (of geeks) haha

    posted by Valerie on 3-4-2009 at 7:12 am

  19. That is quite awesome, Steven. Alas, in 2003, I was only turning 26.

    The biggest advantage I’ve found in being born on 3/3 — an advantage shared by those who’re born on 4/4 and 5/5 and such — is that I don’t have to figure out whether forms are written as month/day or day/month when they ask for my date of birth. I can just go with 3/3 in either direction ;)

    posted by Jacquilynne on 3-4-2009 at 8:11 am

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