BANGALORE, DEC 9: The great New Year is already bringing cheer to many. The good news is that year 2000 the dawn of the new millennium will have one extra Saturday and Sunday!To be precise, the next year will have 53 Saturdays and 53 Sundays, as against 52 each in 1999. In fact, the Centre has announced 17 holidays for year 2000, and five will fall on Saturdays and Sundays. The Centre has also announced 28 restricted holidays, of which six fall on Saturdays and Sundays.The total number of working days for the Government of India in year 2000 will not exceed 214 after allowing for 106 Saturdays and Sundays besides 45 notified holidays. That is, 41 per cent of the year will be spent on holidays in Central Government offices, according to Prof M C Shanthamurthy, Secretary, Institute of Parliamentary Affairs, Bangalore.As for the extra weekend in year 2000, it has been possible because of what well known Mathematician Pythagoras said and believed: Numbers rule the universe.If any year is divisible by4, it is a Leap Year, ie, a 366-day year with February having 29 days. But a Century Year the beginning of the century is not a Leap Year, unless it is divisible by 400. Year 2000 can be divided by 400. So it is a Leap Year that begins with a Saturday and ends on a Sunday. The last time, a year began and ended on the week-end was in 1972.Interestingly, the previous century year 1900 wasn't a Leap Year. Year 1000 wasn't a Leap Year either. In the last 2000 years, there were only four century leap years. They were 400 AD, 800 AD, 1200 AD and 1600 AD. 2000 AD is the fifth century Leap Year.While computer professionals are working day and night to beat the Y2K bug, experts in number theory are busy unravelling the properties of the ``magic number'' 2000. In fact, the ``advance holiday notice'' was issued by a city-based Mathematician, K V Narayana, who has discovered at least six features of the number 2000.The Lecturer at Vivekananda College also highlights some unique properties of 2 and 0, the twonumbers that make up 2000.n In natural numbers, 2 is the only even prime number. (A prime number is one divisible only by 1 and itself). The other prime numbers are odd, namely 3, 5, 7, 11.etc.n Again, 2+2=4=2x2 ie the sum of two equal natural numbers being equal to the product of the same natural numbers. No natural number satisfies this property except the number 2.n 1+1=2 ie the sum of two equal natural numbers being equal to the next natural number. No other natural number satisfies this property except 2.Year 2000 can be expressed as a sum of 2 equal cubes such as (10)3 + (10)3. Year 1000 cannot be expressed as a sum of two equal cubes. Even year 3000 does not have such a unique feature.Also, year 2000 can be expressed as a sum of squares in different ways:(20)2 + (40)2 = (8)2+(44)2(2)2 + (6)2 + (14)2 + (42)2(440/13)2 + (380/13)2Year 2000 can also be expressed as powers of 2:(2)4 + (2)6 + (2)7 + (2)8 + (2)9 + (2)10The other distinct number in year 2000is 0. Zero, a contribution of India to the world of Mathematics, is the one that has caused the world wide Y2K panic too.
