For Brentwood couple, 11-12-13 not No. 1 choice

Too bad 11-12-13 fell on a Tuesday.

Otherwise, Katie Grossman, 25, and her fiance might be marrying Tuesday instead of opting for next year's equally memory-friendly 12-13-14, which is a Saturday.

"I love the idea of a date being super easy to remember," said Grossman, a receptionist in a surgeon's office.

Having first considered 11-12-13, Grossman, 25, and her future husband, Tom Gernon, 29, both of Brentwood, jumped to next year, both for that Saturday and because it's "the last fun date for quite some time," she said.

And, yes, many people do like such dates because they're memorable and can "enhance the specialness" of an already special day, said Gail Satler, sociology professor at Hofstra University.

Others look on such dates through different frames.

For mathematicians, a wow factor would be that this particular "incremental date sequence" occurs just 12 times in a century, with the final chance for the 2000s being next year's 12-13-14, said Paul Fodor, assistant professor of mathematics/number theory at Stony Brook University. Otherwise, you'll have to wait 89 years for 01-02-2103, he said.

And while people do "like to see patterns," from a computer scientist's point of view, the 11-12-13 "arithmetic progression" has no real meaning, said Steve Skiena, computer science professor also at Stony Brook University. That's unlike an upcoming date that he and his crowd have marked: 3-14-15, the first several digits of pi, 3.1415, the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter.

Numerologists do see potential for discovering personal meaning in such dates. But the calculations start with an individual's birth month and date, meaning that "the significance of a particular day . . . wouldn't be the same for everyone," said Michael McClain, an astrologer and numerologist in South Carolina.

What's more, by adding together each digit in 11-12-2013, you come up with 11 -- considered a "master," hence powerful number, said Elizabeth Joyce, a psychic/astrologer in Pennsylvania. That makes it a good day for people to meditate "and get a real shot of good, clear energy." It's a day of manifestation, she said, "a day for you to enhance that which you desire."

Delighted as Grossman is with the 12-13-14 sequence, she said she'll take it only so far. The wedding is planned for sunset, but she had briefly considered an 11 a.m. ceremony, which would have resulted in 11-12-13-14.

That idea was nixed, she said, when she realized "how early I would have to be up for hair and makeup and photos."

Fun dates on the horizon

After next year, this particular incremental date sequence may be going away for close to 90 years, but Steve Skiena, a professor in Stony Brook University's computer science department points out there are other fun dates on the horizon:

Those in the 01-01-2011 pattern, such as 02-02-2022.

Not quite as obvious, the 11-13-15 pattern, in which you increase by 2.

The date 3-14-15, which will likely rock elementary school math classes, as those are the first few digits in pi, the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter.

-- Patricia Kitchen