English

An Idempotent Cryptarithm

History and Overview 2021-06-02 v1 Number Theory

Abstract

Notice that the square of 93769376 is 8790937687909376 which has as its rightmost four digits 93769376. To generalize this remarkable fact, we show that, for each integer n2n\ge 2, there exists at least one and at most two positive integers xx with exactly nn-digits in base-1010 (meaning the leftmost or nthn^{\text{th}} digit from the right is non-zero) such that squaring the integer results in an integer whose rightmost nn digits form the integer xx. We then generalize the argument to prove that, in an arbitrary number base B2B\ge 2 with exactly mm distinct prime factors, an upper bound is 2m22^m -2 and a lower bound is 2m112^{m-1}-1 for the number of such nn-digit positive integers. For n=1n=1, there are exactly 2m12^m -1 solutions, including 11 and excluding 00.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2106.00382,
  title  = {An Idempotent Cryptarithm},
  author = {Samer Seraj},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2106.00382},
  year   = {2021}
}

Comments

Accepted for publication in the Mathematical Association of America's Mathematics Magazine

R2 v1 2026-06-24T02:42:09.040Z