Consider this January 24, and look at its date, written with the two-digit year: 1/24/24. Note that the month (1) times the day (24) equals the year (24). This phenomenon happens again on February 12: 2/12/24. And again on March 8. (3/8/24). Indeed this happens SEVEN times this year. (Apr 6, Jun 4, Aug 3, and Dec 2 are the others.)
Whenever a date has this property it is called a Year Product Day (YPD). Most (but not all) years have YPDs. And the number of YPDs they have varies greatly: Last year (2023), for instance only had one, namely Jan 23 (1/23/23), while 2020 had five (1/20/20, 2/10/20, 4/5/20, 5/4/20, and 10/2/20). You can find years multiple years in each century with anywhere from 0 to 6 YPDs. But only ’24 in each century has 7 YPDs and seven is the record.
So, enjoy this record breaking year and celebrate EACH of the seven YPDs!! Unless you plan to live another 100 years (or are over 100 now), this will be your first, last, and only chance!!
PESKY PUZZLER 24.1 (The first PP of 2024)
Why not have some fun and see if you can find years (excluding ’20 and ’23, already mentioned above) with various numbers of YPDs.
You get ‘credit’ for this Pesky Puzzler if you can find Three different years with three different numbers of YPDs. You also get bonus credit for finding years with EACH of the numbers from 1 – 6. AND you get more bonus credit if you can find at least one year (preferably two or three) with NO YPDs.
