Saturday, October 23, 2010

October not so special

I have gotten the follow email a couple of times so far:

This October has 5 Fridays, 5 Saturdays and 5 Sundays, all in one month. It happens once in 823 years.

Close, but not quite. The last time that October had 5 Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays was 2004. That's a little shy of the stated 823 years. Before that was 1999. Then there was 1993. And 1982. And so on. Every time that October 1st falls on a Friday - on average about once every 7 years - it will meet the stated pattern. I am a little surprised that this is going around since the pattern should be obvious. Whenever any month with 31 days starts on a Friday, this pattern will occur. It's really pretty common. January of this year had the 5 weekend pattern and July of next year will have it.