No accounting of "2008's 25 Geekiest 25th Anniversaries" should have been considered complete without a mention of MathCounts reaching that milestone, yet such was the case here a week ago. ... I might as well have written that two plus two equals an orange.

Next month in Denver, 228 middle school math whizzes will compete in the silver anniversary MathCounts competition, having distinguished themselves from 41,000 participating students in 6,300 schools.

Middle school Mathletes will race to answer such questions as, "What is the greatest prime factor of 221?" or "What is the 100th digit after the decimal point of the decimal representation of 1/7," in less than 45 seconds and without the help of a calculator. (Answers: 17 and 8.)

If those were too easy (or tough) for you, breeze on over to the organization's "Problem of the Week" archive, where you can find testers dating back to 2000.

In honor of the anniversary, former teacher Kevin Glennon has compiled his own list -- "some of the most exciting and enthralling contributions math has made to our lives" -- into "The Top Ten Greatest Math Hits of the Last 25 Years." Included are SETI@home, VoIP, GPS, and MP3.