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2/2/22 – Some Pleasing Numeric Patterns

I often spot dates and times which have unusual regularities. I realised earlier this year that the 2nd of February – 2/2/22 – would have some nice ones. These kind of date patterns are almost always contingent on the order in which day, month and year are written in the date format. I associate D/M/Y with the UK and Europe, and M/D/Y with the US, but the picture is more complicated than that – see this Wikipedia article for details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_format_by_country

Here are a few which I find pleasing:

2/2/22

Works for both MDY and DMY date formats.

How about adding a time?

  • 2:22 2/2/22
  • 22:22 2/2/22 – very nice
  • 22:22:22 2/2/22 – adding seconds takes it to the next level

2/22/22 MDY (DMY: 22/2/22)

Without leading zeros, this one has variants for DMY and MDY date formats. We can also add a time as before:

  • 22:22:22 2/22/22
  • 2:22:22 2/22/22

22/02/2022

I really like the mirror symmetry, though, the symmetry is broken in MDY format. Since 2022 isn’t a palindrome, just adding a time doesn’t work – unless you also specify seconds

  • 22/02/2022 02:20:22 – huge!

Now, if only this could have all happened on a ‘2sday’ instead of a Wednesday!