Square Root Day is the original math holiday

“They get all the desserts and attention,” Gordon said. “So yeah, I’m jealous.”

That’s because about seven years before the first official Pi Day celebration — which was held in the San Francisco Exploratorium — Gordon started to celebrate other “number” holidays, like Square Root Day. On Monday, May 5 — or 5/5/25 — Gordon will celebrate the last “square root day” for another 11 years. The last one fell on April 4, 2016, and the next will be June 6, 2036.

Gordon stumbled upon the “square root dates” back in 1981 when he was writing a check and started spelling out the date, Sept. 9. Since then, he’s celebrated the rare holiday with students, teachers and family. Back in 2004, on 2/2/04, he cut vegetable roots into squares to send to the groundhog Punxsutawney Phil. And as a tradition, he often wears square glasses and drinks root beer — usually from a square glass — for every square root day.

He also created Trumpet Day in anticipation of Feb. 2, 2022, given the “to to to too” sound the date makes when sound aloud. And “odd day,” which is when three consecutive odd numbers make up the date, only happens six times in a century.

The former Sequoia High School educator reaches out to hundreds of people in anticipation of the day to get the word out. He still hears from former students and colleagues who remember the holiday he passed along to them. Gordon said he stumbled upon the holidays by accident, calling them “flukes.” But they’ve certainly made an impression on many people, including his daughter.

“My daughter teaches [transitional kindergarten] too, and now she is doing it in her class this year,” he said.

alyse@smdailyjournal.com

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