I’ve received a couple emails

I’ve received a couple emails and viewed a few weblog postings about the upcoming special “time event” occurring in two days: the palindromic symmetry of 8:02pm on February 20, 2002, 20:02 on 20/02 of 2002 (2002 2002 2002), using the international date/time notation. The email goes on to say that the only other time this has occurred is at 10:01am on January 10, 1001 (1001 1001 1001), and that it will never occur again.

Perhaps I’m misunderstanding the symmetry here, but it looks like there are 2 more instances of this:

- 11:11 on 11/11 in 1111
- 21:12 on 21/12 in 2112

After 2112, this event will never occur again because for this trick to work, the first two digits can never be bigger than the 23 hours in a day (22/22 and 23/32 are impossible day/month combinations).