And Today Is…

July 17 is Yellow Pig Day, which was started in the ’60s by the founder of Hampshire College’s prestigious summer math program. Each year, alumni return to celebrate the mysterious Yellow Pig, a seemingly random inside joke that’s inextricably linked with the number 17 (a “random number,” according to program founder David Kelly, in that “the chances are more than random that a random number will be divisible by 17.”) Next up: the odds of a Yellow Pig meeting a Black Swan.