Happy Pi-nstein Day

This is from the latest mental_floss e-newsletter.

Is it just us, or does everything seem to be really pleasant all of a sudden? The sun is shining, songbirds are harmonizing their chirps, and even the neighborhood bully seems a tad less obnoxious — we watched him slug three kids at the bus stop today instead of his usual six. Yes, everything seems a little too perfect with the world, and we didn't understand why until we channeled a little Nostradamus and started to analyze the dates.

The truth is, every once in a while two holidays overlap, and everything seems to go eerily right. Christmas and Chanukah will come remarkably close, or Rosh Hashanah and Ramadan might share space on the calendar, and everyone seems to be happy at the same time. But one thing that never struck us until this year is that the two holiest of High Nerd Holidays are ALWAYS aligned. That's right: Albert Einstein's birthday and International Pi Day both fall on 3/14. And while we'll be busy spending our vacation petitioning the local school districts to give everyone the day off (or giving everyone an extra hour of physics and geometry in "celebration" of the event), we just figured we'd let you know. After all, if your boss gives you a raise, and all the traffic lights turn green as you pull up to them, you'll want to know who to blame.