Y is for the Year 2013

*I* am having a “significant” birthday this year.

Happy New Year! We begin 2013, a year of a mere 365 days, unlike last year.

Here are some 2013 movable holidays. Note the ones marked # begin at sundown on the day before they are listed.

February 10: Chinese New Year, the year of the snake
February 13: Ash Wednesday
February 24: Purim#
March 10: Daylight Saving Time begins in the US
March 31: Easter Sunday (Western)
May 19: Pentecost
July 9: Ramadan begins#
September 5#: 1st Day of Rosh Hashanah
September 14#: Yom Kippur
November 3: Daylight Saving Time ends
November 28: 1st Day of Hanukkah#, Thanksgiving

A lot of famous people turn 70 this year, including Joni Mitchell. But there are plenty of folks who WOULD have turned 70, but died along the way, including Janis Joplin, Jim Croce, Florence Ballard, Arthur Ashe, John Denver, and George Harrison.

And I am having a “significant” birthday this year. NOT 70.

2013 will be the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination, and the 150th anniversary of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. Here are more anniversaries.

Finally, the number 2013 is divisible by 3, which I noted at once, since the digits add up to 6; if the digits add up to 3, 6 or 9, the number is divisible by 3. 2013/3=671. I can see a factor of 671; in a three-digit number, when the middle digit equals the other two, the number is divisible by 11. Thus, the prime factors of 2013 are 3, 11 and 61. Yes, my mind DOES operate that way…

ABC Wednesday – Round 11

Author: Roger

I'm a librarian. I hear music, even when it's not being played. I used to work at a comic book store, and it still informs my life. I won once on JEOPARDY! - ditto.

26 thoughts on “Y is for the Year 2013”

  4. Happy New Year! Good post and hard to believe that Janis Joplin would have turned 70 this year. I’ve always loved her music and wished she’d had a longer life.

  5. Wow, Roger, I almost wish I were still in the classroom so I could share all that Math stuff with my students. lol (almost!) Have a wonderful New Year and may 2013 be prosperous for you.

    Leslie
    abcw team

  6. I’m glad someones mind works that way–not mine. Enjoyed all the upcoming dates===Happy New Year.
    Ann

  8. wow, your mind marches down a mathematical, logical path! thanks, I’ll try to file this bit away. šŸ˜€
    I do like the fact that the Chinese New Year begins on my birthday this year. Not 70 for me either, it’s 70+3 for me!
    Happy day for you, whenever it is!
    and a very happy, peaceful new year to you

  9. Well my mind doesn’t operate that way. The eyes glaze over and I will just take your word for the calculations. (:0)
    Happy New Year and thanks for being the Chief of Blogdom.

  11. Year is THE popular Y word today! I also applied it as my blog entry.
    Your calendar is wonderful! I am so glad to know that Hanukkah & Thanksgiving fall together this year. I doubt I would have noticed until I turned the page to November otherwise, thanks!

  12. Well like every other post you have shared in 2012, today I learn yet another math lesson and fact.

    Roger, you are amazing!

    I found several Cassettes of John Denver at the Thrift store, and since I’m from the dark ages, still play my cassette player in the kitchen while cooking and baking, and John Deven has seranaded me very nicely this Christmas Season… So many died too young..but the music lives on, and thus, they do to.

    Good post to end and beging a new year.

  13. And I wish you’d been my math teacher. I didn’t know anything about all those little mathematical tricks until I started tutoring 6th grade math. I love the one about being divisible by 11. I didn’t know that one until today. Math is not my forte. I didn’t learn my times tables until I went to college and suddenly realized it was the key to quite a lot of math problems!

  14. I just love the way your mathematical mind is operating!! I just seem to do that automatically. It is a number six year in numerology also as you have indicated the numbers add up to 6. It may be a nuturing year for the earth. It is a mothering number and a harmonious number. My wish is for the earth to have a caring mother to tend to it.

  15. I hope you had a very nice new year celebrations. ,mine was just a quiet one , spending it with the family at home.

  16. You make math fun. I think I could have learned math from you. I hope you continue your math facts this YEAR and that you continue to visit and read our blogs as diligently as you have in the past. ABC Wednesday is a great meme! Even thought it can get stressful finding the letter of the alphabet, plus the community theme I like to superimpose (people, streets, neighborhoods, worthy causes, etc.) ON TOP OF the alphabet theme, your diligent readers make it all worthwhile. Thank you for your time and effort.

    We feel like we know you.

    Happy New Year.

  19. They interviewed the director your city’s Museum of Mathematics (MOMATH) on the radio who did the same calculation as you about 2013 when they asked him about interesting numbers. You would get on like a house on fire. He also said the next two years also have three prime numbers and then there will be a gap of 300, or did he say 600, whichever it is I’m sure you’ll know.
    A Happy New Year to you.

  20. Sad to say, my mind does NOT operate that way, much to the chagrin of every math teacher I’ve ever had. But, in terms of tidbits, I did hear the other day that this is the first year since 1987 that’s contained four different digits, so there’s that.

  22. At a certain point (like midway through your expected life span), all birthdays are important. So let me be the first to wish you a happy birthday on this most significant occasion coming up. And happy new year, too.

  23. The numbers were fun, although I didn’t understand a thing. I will always miss Jim Croce and John Denver.

  24. My natural thinking patterns are not quite so logical as yours, but your beautifully clear explanations made sense and, I think, registered for the long term. I plan to enter those dates in my calendar. Thank you! May 2013 bring many more fascinating bits of information for you to savour, sort and deliver to those of us needing a more palatable translation. šŸ™‚

  26. I wonder what 2013 holds for the rest of us? I’m so late catching up with reading posts. Hopefully this is not a 2013 trend. šŸ™‚

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