#perfect squares

Last perfect square day for eleven years….9/25/25!!!!

In yesterday’s post, I shared info about the date, 9/16/25, a “triple perfect square” date – and then I looked into how many times Dickinson used the word “square” in her poetry.  Two times, to be exact; once in “Grief is a mouse,” and once in “I could die to know.”  In neither poem did she use “square” in a mathematical sense of a squared number; instead, she used it more in terms of a “public square” – at least that is the case with “Grief is a mouse.”  That poem includes the line, “Burn Him in the Public square.”

In “I could die to know,” the word seems to suggest a “public square,” but I think that it is open to other interpretations as well, and the online Dickinson Lexicon appears to support this notion.

I checked the Lexicon to see how Dickinson used the word “square” in her writings, and it offered two definitions:

A tool used for measurement.

Open space or area in a town or city.

Of course, that second definition was used in “Grief is a mouse.”  Dickinson literally wrote “public square” in that poem.  Does that mean the other definition was used in “I could die to know”?  Is the term suggesting “a tool used for measurement”?

Interestingly, the lexicon also provides a definition for Dickinson’s use of “squarely.”  The entry states, “See ‘square’; Directly; honestly; in a straightforward manner.”

Oddly enough, though, Dickinson never used the word “squarely” in any of her poems.  Only “square” – in the two poems I’ve already mentioned.

In the second poem, “I could die to know,” in the line “To the very Square – His foot is passing,” does Dickinson mean that, as she dreams from her bed, this unseen lover is walking past the public square as cart loads of coal are rattling and rolling past?  Does the line also imply that as she dozes in bed when the town comes to life as “Morning's bold face stares in the window,” her lover passes on foot – and everything in life is as it should be, “To the very Square,” calculated and measured precisely?

I gotta say, that capital “H” with him adds to the mystery.  Is she talking about “him,” or is she talking about “HIM”?  LOL – this made me think of lyrics from Lady Gaga’s song “Born This Way”: “It doesn’t matter if you love him / Or capital ‘H-I-M” – and  “God makes no mistakes.”

Okay, so let me wax profoundly a bit – or certainly a bit left of kilter:  If the “he” in the poem is “HE” – and not merely “he” – then check out that first line again: “I could die – to know.”  Hmm…the speaker will not know if this passer-by even returns her feelings – until she dies? And…does this passer-by even exist?  Or is HE merely a part of her dream? 

Today, 9/16/25, is a perfect square day.

Well, depending upon how you define a perfect square day.

In this case, 9/16/25, is recognized as a "Triple Perfect Square Day" because each numerical component of the date, when interpreted as month, day, and year (in a two-digit format), is a perfect square.

However, I discovered this chart, HERE, and at first I was a bit confused because 9/16/25 is not on the list.  What?  How could a professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Portland in Oregon have been so wrong?

I then found this article, from back in 2016, and it features the very same professor – and the same confusing information.

When I reviewed the article more carefully, though, I realized that his definition of a perfect square day is a little more precise:  It’s when the numbers for the month, day, and year are combined to form a single number that is a perfect square.  For example, the digits of 9/27/2025 combine to make the number 9,272,025, and that number is a perfect square.  Its square root is 3,045.  Today’s date combines to become 9,162,025 – which is not a perfect square.

By the way, don’t confuse all of this with what is known as a square root day; info on that is HERE.

Once I cleared all of this up in my mind, I wondered how often Emily Dickinson used the word “square” in her poetry. 

She used the word twice – once each in two different poems, “Grief is a mouse” and “I could die to know.”  However, she did not use “square” in a mathematical sense; instead, she used it more in terms of a “public square.”

Well, in one instance, she definitely used the word in that manner.  In the first poem, “Grief is a mouse,” she has the line, “Burn Him in the Public square.”  

In the other poem, the word seems to suggest a “public square,” but I think that it could be open to other interpretations as well – and the online Dickinson Lexicon doesn’t seem to be of much help. I'd say it isn't quite on the square.

Let me explain:

HEX 30 is equivalent to DEC 48 because DEC 16 × 3 is equal to DEC 48.

Add 1 to DEC 48 and you get DEC 49.

(1-25 is hell)