Today we celebrate a Permutation Day! I call days like today permutation days because the digits of the day and the month can be rearranged to form the year.
We can also consider today a Transposition Day, as we need only a single transposition (an exchange of two numbers) to turn the year into the day and date.
Celebrate Permutation Day by mixing things up! Try doing things in a different order today. Just remember, for some operations, order definitely matters!
Here’s a peaceful scene from the West Coast, with a touch of mathematical appreciation.
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Today we celebrate a Derangement Day! Usually I call a day like today a Permutation Day because the digits of the day and month can be rearranged to form the year, but there’s something extra special about today’s date:
The numbers of the month and day are a derangement of the year: that is, they are a permutation of the digits of the year in which no digit remains in its original place!
Derangements pop up in some interesting places, and are connected to many rich mathematical ideas. The question “How many derangements of n objects are there?” is a fun and classic application of the principle of inclusion-exclusion. Derangements also figure in to some calculations of e and rook polynomials.
So enjoy Derangement Day! Today, it’s ok to be totally out of order.
Today we celebrate a Permutation Day! I call days like today permutation days because the digits of the day and the month can be rearranged to form the year.
In addition to being a Permutation Day, today’s date can also be read as a palindromic number, since 81218 reads the same forwards and backwards.
Celebrate Permutation Day by mixing things up! Try doing things in a different order today. Just remember, for some operations, order definitely matters.
