Well it looks as if the Binary Age is almost upon us and we’ve been waiting a long time for this tremendous event.
Of course 1st January 2010 can be represented as 01.01.10, but New Year’s Day is just the start of something much bigger.
The 1st second of the 1st minute of the 1st hour of the 1st day of January 2010 can be written:
01.01.01.01.01.10
but perhaps even more interesting is a date later in the month:
The 1st second of the 10th minute of the 1st hour of the 10th day of the 1st month of the next year can be written:
01.10.01.10.01.10 or in binary 011001100110
Fantastic! Not only is it palindromic but as a binary number it can be converted back to something we all understand!
Now this number comes out in our numbers (decimal),If I’ve got it right, as 1638!
So it could be that on 10th January 2010 we may just spin back to 1638, the year Louis XIV was born (never did his parents think he would come to such a sticky end!) and Charles II was King of England with the Civil War about to break out!!
Now it seems to me that there is an awful lot of maths worth investigating on these fascinating numbers. Why not set your children off on a project.
By the way 01.10.01.10.01.10 converts to the year 1366, the Year King Henry IV was born.
(You can find how to convert binary to decimal on the web: you just need to be able to double and add up!)