One doesn’t have to be a Mayan to believe that tomorrow represents a numerological end of an era. Apocalyptic visions stem from reading the Mesoamerican Long Count Calendar. But even using the widely used Gregorian Calendar, there’s something special about today: 20.12.2012.
It’s one of those dates where digits create interesting patterns. It also comes at the end of 13 years which have been astonishingly fertile for such numerologically “magic” dates. The rest of the century is going to be a desert by comparison.
Dates can be aesthetically attractive because they repeat a number several times (eg last week’s 12.12.12) or contain a string of successive numbers (eg last month’s 10.11.12) or because they are palindromes (eg 01.1.10), where you get the same date if you run the numbers backwards.
The beauty of these numbers is in the eye of the beholder. There can be no consensus over what constitutes a date that has numerological significance. But one way of shedding light on the situation is to look at different formats.
First up is the series that runs from 1.1.1 to 2.2.2 and all the way up to 12.12.12. There are only 12 members of this series because there are only 12 months in the year. It is this feature of the Gregorian Calendar, indeed, which is the main reason why the magic number boom is about to end. The last member of this series was earlier this month. We will have to wait 88 years until 1 January 2101 before we get the next one.
