Those of you who have read this blog for some time, know of my passion for magic squares. I've even shared several unusual magic squares, such as Werner Miller's Square Bet or the nested magic squares, from time to time.

I've recently discovered the work of George Widener, an artist who was born mildly autistic. His site features many amazing works, but I'd like to direct your attention to his calendar work. Some are simply calendars of future dates, such as New Year's Eve Bash and Birthday in 2099. The rest have more amazing and whimsical touches, however. There's Month of Sundays, which is based on the classic expression, and features dates from the 23rd century that fall on a Sunday. Similarly, TGIF spans 1500 years of Fridays.

Especially interesting though, are the mixture of calendars and magic squares. Portrait of Sarah features four birthdays of George's family members in the center of a magic square. The center four squares of the Queen Victoria magic square feature important dates from her life.

The single most astounding square, and the one featured in the upper left corner of this post, would have to be 9717TGIF. If you total the large numbers, they total 66 in every direction. If you total the years, they total 9717 in every direction. If you assign numbers to each month, with January being 1, through December, which would be 12, the months total 30 in every direction. If you're still not impressed, although I can't imagine that's the case, every date in the square falls on a Friday!

Another impressive magic square which I'd like to highlight is Lee Sallow's magic square, from the bottom of this magic square column. It's a deceptively simple 3x3 magic square that totals 45 in every direction. Going one step further, though, you can write out the numbers as English words, and the number of letters in every direction will total 21!

Unrelated note: This is the 200th Grey Matters post!