[ February 25, 2002 ]
Power of Patterns
Illustrated by Klaus Brockhaus (email)
The pattern represents the new sequence A068065: Palindromes n
for which there is a unique k such that n = k + reverse(k).
E.g. 10801 = 10800 + 00801 and for no other k we have 10801 = k + reverse(k).
The remarkable gap in the second column of the following pattern arises because 121 = 47 + 74 but also 121 = 110 + 011.
0 101 10001 1000001 100000001 ... |
2 ooo 10201 1002001 100020001 ... |
4 141 10401 1004001 100040001 ... |
6 161 10601 1006001 100060001 ... |
8 181 10801 1008001 100080001 ... |
11 1001 100001 10000001 1000000001 ... |
Asking if the dots at the bottom of each column
indicate an infinite pattern, or just unexplored terrain,
Klaus responded
"I have not worked out a rigorous proof, that the sequence continues in
the way indicated by the dots, but informal considerations make it clear
that the uniqueness condition is very restrictive (if n = a + b and a is
not palindromic or ends with 0, then n = b + a is a second, different
representation) so some case distinctions concerning the number of
digits will lead to the desired result that the pattern is infinite.
A purely computational exploration of the larger numbers is not
feasible because of the required time."
Klaus Brockhaus OEIS sequences
A068065, A068064, A068062, A068061, and A067030.
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