photo from magnetbox’s site at flickr.com/creativecommons

Tomorrow might seem like any other Tuesday. But to a small group of math enthusiasts, it’s a day that only comes along once every five — or seven, or nine, or 23 — years. That’s because it’s March 3, 2009 (3/3/09, if you will) — and, as I’m sure most of you are well aware, three is the square of nine.

When do they teach square roots, anyway?

Ron Gordon, a driver’s ed teacher at Redwood City’s Sequoia High, has been trying to get Square Root Day to take hold in schools, with limited success, since Sept. 9, 1981. On Feb. 2, 2004, Gordon’s students drank root beer out of square mugs and ate root vegetables cut into cubes, according to a story I found in the Mercury News archives. Who knows what he has in store this time.

Is Square Root Day being observed in any Oakland classrooms?