Happy 62 Day!

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @AdamReisinger

 Today is a lot of things. It's Thursday. It's Veterans Day in the United States. It's my mom's birthday (happy birthday, mom!). 

But, more nerdily (not actually a word, I know), it's also the last day of the year that translates to binary (assuming you're using 2-digit years, which, if you're actually coding in binary, you shouldn't be, but that's besides the point). 11-11-10. 

And for those of you that aren't fluent in binary and are still confused by the title of the article, 111110 = 62. 

Still confused? Well, let's go way back to elementary school, and bases. Our standard number system is Base 10. Any number 0-9 can go in any place. The first place to the left of the decimal point (usually left out in whole numbers) is the "ones", followed by the "tens", the "hundreds" and so on. But in binary, numbers are expressed in Base 2. The first spot in a binary number is the "ones", just like in Base 10, but the only option is 1 or 0. Then, each spot going to the left represents two to the x power. A 1 in that spot means the number is "on" (or added to the total) and a 0 means it's "off". 

So, knowing that, we've got six places in the 111110 date. Going from right to left, that's 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, and 32. All the spots are on, with the exception of 1. So add up the rest, and you get 32. 

This may be the last "binary day" of this year, but we'll have plenty next year:

January 1

January 10

January 11

October 1

October 10

October 11

November 1

November 10

November 11

However, after November 11, 2011 (or 11-11-11), we won't have another binary day until January 1st, 2100 (01-01-00, which equals 20), which is 32,559 days from now. 

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