LONDON, England -- For one minute this Wednesday night, time will be in perfect symmetry.
For those who follow the Gregorian calendar, two minutes past eight tonight marks a millennial mathematical curiosity.
The time, date and year will form a rare triple palindrome -- 20:02, 20/02/2002 -- reading the same backwards and forwards.
The last time this rare alignment struck was in the morning of November 11, in the year 1111, mathematicians have said.
You'd have to wait 110 years, at 12 minutes past nine in the evening of December 21, 2112 -- or 21:12, 21/12/2112, for this to happen again.
The rare time sequence has triggered excitement among scientists and psychics around the world.
'Supernatural auras'
"A mirror day like this is a good opportunity for reflecting," Mark Saltveit, editor of The Palindromist magazine, told The Associated Press.
He is devoted to palindromes of all sorts -- strings of numbers, words or sentences that read the same backward or forward.
Meanwhile, Israeli psychic Uri Geller has planned to lead a day of spiritual meditation on Wednesday to mark the occasion.
"The date 20/02/2002 is very, very rare. Palindromic dates have always had very supernatural auras about them," he told Reuters news agency.
He urged his followers to think positively at four points on Wednesday -- at 11:11 a.m., 13:11 p.m., 20:02 p.m. and 11:11 p.m. -- to encourage peace-building and personal growth.
"For two to three minutes there will be a massive surge of positive consciousness. It will be a moment to bring healing, a moment to bring peace," he said.
Asked how he would co-ordinate the meditations of his followers around the world, Geller said:
"I would appreciate everyone concentrating in GMT [Greenwich Mean Time], but if you can't do that, take a moment when you can ... The message is be positive, be optimistic and believe in yourself."
Of course, all the excitement comes from a Western perspective, leaving aside the many other calendars that track the passage of time -- Chinese, Islamic, Jewish, Ethiopian and others.
http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science...ime/index.html
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