Happy Birthday, Donald P. Shiley

January 19 will be the 94th birthday of the late Donald P. Shiley, whose $12 million gift made possible the renovation of the University’s engineering building, renamed in his honor as Shiley Hall. A later $8 million gift from the Shileys resulted in the renaming of the engineering program as the Donald P. Shiley School of Engineering. While the generosity of Mr. Shiley and his wife, University regent Darlene Shiley, has played a huge part in furthering the University’s mission, the Shileys have long been known as philanthropists and friends of higher education around the country. Donald Shiley passed away on July 31, 2010.

In honor of Donald Shiley’s birthday, engineering professor Aziz Inan has looked into how the numbers add up, using Mr. Shiley’s birthdate of 1-19-2014, or 1192014:

• Split the full date of Donald Shiley’s 94th birthday, 1192014, into two numbers by separating the odd-numbered and even-numbered digits as 1904 and 121. Then, switch the places of digits 9 and 4 in 1904, yielding 1409. Also, 121 equals 11², where 11 minus 2 equals 9. Now, go ahead and multiply numbers 1409, 9, and 94. What comes out? Answer: 1192014!
• Donald Shiley’s birthdate, January 19, can be expressed as 119. If 119 is split as 11 and 9, 11 minus 9 equals 2. Interestingly enough, the full date of Mr. Shiley’s 94th birthday can be obtained from numbers 119 and 2 in a “magical” way and here is how: 119 x (2 x 2)² = 1904 and 119 + 2 = 121. Intertwine numbers 1904 and 121. What did you obtain? Answer: 1192014 again!
• 2014 = 2 x 19 x 53, where twice the reverse of the sum of these three primes equals 94.
• 94 equals 30 plus 64, where the product of these two numbers yield Mr. Shiley’s birth year, 1920.
• The reverse of the square of the sum of the digits of 2014 yields 94.
• Before Darlene Shiley married Mr. Shiley, her name was Darlene Loran. Assign numbers to the letters of “Darlene Loran” (A = 1, B = 2, etc.) and the sum of the letters of Darlene and Loran come out to be 59 and 60, respectively. Adding these two numbers results in 119, which can be interpreted as Donald Shiley’s birth date, January 19.

To see Inan’s entire article, go to http://tinyurl.com/lk7kwe2. For more information contact the Shiley School of Engineering at .7292 or stroheck@up.edu.