Wow! For one minute today, the world will be in perfect symmetry.

In a year that reads the same backward as forward, this evening will bring 60 seconds of palindromic perfection at least for those who follow the Gregorian calendar.

Come Wednesday, the time, day, month and year will align: 8:02 p.m., Feb. 20, 2002.

Write that in military time and with numerals for the month of February and it works out to: 20:02, 02/20, 2002. In European style for the day and month, in which the date is listed first, it’s just as balanced: 20:02, 20/02, 2002.

“A mirror day like this is a good opportunity for reflecting,” said Mark Saltveit, editor of The Palindromist magazine. He is devoted to palindromes of all sorts strings of numbers, words or sentences that read the same backward or forward.

The rare moment is drawing its share of attention: Saltveit, a standup comedian, said he already has three radio interviews lined up with European stations.

Separately, a Web site, www.worldharmonyday.com, is calling for a two-minute prayer for peace to begin at the start of the palindromic moment.

And an e-mail is making the rounds touting the rare alignment though it mistakenly says the event last happened on Jan. 10, 1001 and will never happen again.

Actually, it happened in the year 1111 and will again in 2112.

Of course, all the excitement comes from a Western perspective, leaving aside the many other calendars that track the passage of time Chinese, Islamic, Jewish, Ethiopian and others.

But that doesn’t bother Salveit. “Occasions like this are good excuses to party,” he said.