Time for another calendrical coincidence: It's 11/12/13.
So what does that mean? In the cosmic scheme of things, nothing. In fact, if you tally your days by the DD/MM/YY method, it's just 12/11/13 — and the interesting lineup of sequential integers is still almost a month away. If you write Tuesday's date as Nov. 12, 2013, you might wonder what all the fuss is about.
But rest assured: There is a fuss, especially when it comes to getting hitched.
"Iconic dates have become a trend in the United States, reaching new heights when over 65,000 couples tied the knot on 07/07/07," Brian Beitler, chief marketing officer for David's Bridal, said in a news release. "11/12/13 is a sequential pattern, and we have learned that couples love dates that have patterns."
The nationwide bridal retail chain estimates that 3,000 couples will be getting married on 11/12/13, compared with about 370 a year ago. The theory is that a sequential date is lucky. Or symbolic. Or just easier to remember years later.
Some weddings have even been planned for 9:10 on 11/12/13 to maximize the effect.
Judging by Monday's tweets, the 11/12/13 effect applies to dating as well: "Who wants to ask me out tomorrow and date me so our date can be 11.12.13? Anyone? Anyone?" one Twitter user wrote. Another passed along a word of advice: "Attention boys: Ask your girl to be your girlfriend tomorrow because it's 11/12/13 and that's cute."
Leave it to Twitter to bring the bitter with the sweet: "11-12-13: Prepare for relationships that will last until 11-14-13," one tweet read.
The date is also memorable for math geeks: "Tomorrow is 11/12/13," New York Times deputy tech editor Quentin Hardy wrote in a tweet on Monday. "Which means that at 9:10 a.m. the Google campus will probably be insufferable."
Aziz Inan, an electrical engineering professor at the University of Portland, isn't insufferable — but he is intense when it comes to noodling through the numerology of calendrical coincidences. He has delved into the permutations of palindrome dates. He has uncovered the mysteries hidden in the birthdates of famous folks such as Hillary Clinton and Neil Armstrong. Now he's riffing on the resonances contained in 11/12/13.
"After this one, there will be one more such sequential date to occur next year, on 12-13-14, never occurring again in this century," Inan writes. The brides are probably already lining up.
I asked my Twitter pals this question: "What will you do to celebrate 9:10 11/12/13?" Here are some of the replies:
More calendrical coincidences:
- Couple weds at 9:10 on TODAY
- Why 11/12/13 is such a hot date for weddings
- Video: 11/11/11 brings hope of luck
- For caterers and casinos, a lucky 07/07/07
- Celebrating 1:02:03 on 04/05/06
Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the NBC News Science Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding +Alan Boyle to your Google+ circles. To keep up with NBCNews.com's stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.