| Today, 9/16/25, is a perfect square day. Well, depending upon how you define a perfect square day. In this case, 9/16/25, is recognized as a "Triple Perfect Square Day" because each numerical component of the date, when interpreted as month, day, and year (in a two-digit format), is a perfect square. However, I discovered this chart, HERE, and at first I was a bit confused because 9/16/25 is not on the list. What? How could a professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Portland in Oregon have been so wrong? I then found this article, from back in 2016, and it features the very same professor – and the same confusing information. |  |
When I reviewed the article more carefully, though, I realized that his definition of a perfect square day is a little more precise: It’s when the numbers for the month, day, and year are combined to form a single number that is a perfect square. For example, the digits of 9/27/2025 combine to make the number 9, 272,025, and that number is a perfect square. Its square root is 3,045. Today’s date combines to become 9,162,025 – which is not a perfect square.
By the way, don’t confuse all of this with what is known as a square root day; info on that is HERE.
Once I cleared all of this up in my mind, I wondered how often Emily Dickinson used the word “square” in her poetry.
She used the word twice – once each in two different poems, “Grief is a mouse” and “I could die to know.” However, she did not use “square” in a mathematical sense; instead, she used it more in terms of a “public square.”
Well, in one instance, she definitely used the word in that manner. In the first poem, “Grief is a mouse,” she has the line, “Burn Him in the Public square.”
By the way, don’t confuse all of this with what is known as a square root day; info on that is HERE.
Once I cleared all of this up in my mind, I wondered how often Emily Dickinson used the word “square” in her poetry.
She used the word twice – once each in two different poems, “Grief is a mouse” and “I could die to know.” However, she did not use “square” in a mathematical sense; instead, she used it more in terms of a “public square.”
Well, in one instance, she definitely used the word in that manner. In the first poem, “Grief is a mouse,” she has the line, “Burn Him in the Public square.”
In the other poem, the word seems to suggest a “public square,” but I think that it could be open to other interpretations as well – and the online Dickinson Lexicon doesn’t seem to be on the square.
I’ll get to that tomorrow.
I’ll get to that tomorrow.
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