Curious numbers

A an n-digit number is said to be curious if the last n digits of its square are the same as the original number. For example, 252 = 625 and 762 = 5776. (Curious numbers are also known as automorphic numbers.)

There are bigger curious numbers, such as 212890625 and 787109376:

2128906252 = 45322418212890625

and

7871093762 = 619541169787109376.

And if the square of x has the same last n digits as x, so does the cube of x and all higher powers.

It turns out that for each n > 1, there are two curious numbers of length n.

Always two there are; no more, no less. — Yoda

There’s even a formula for the two solutions. The first is the remainder when 5 to the power 2n is divided by 10n and the second is 10n + 1 minus the first.

Here’s a little Python code to show that the first several solutions really are solutions.

for i in range(2, 20):
    a = 5**(2**i) % 10**i
    b = 10**i - a + 1
    print((a**2 - a)%10**i, (b**2 - b)%10**i)

Related: Applied number theory

11 thoughts on “Curious numbers

  1. Hmm. Just on a lark, I implemented this in Perl 6. Only instead of checking the results work like you do, I actually printed them out. Two things jumped out at me:

    1) I initially assumed (without really thinking about it) that the n = 1 case doesn’t work because there is only one solution. Actually (of course!) it doesn’t work because there are three: the two that fit your formula (5 and 6) and the bonus solution 1.

    2) A number of the generated solutions only have n digits if you prepend leading zeros. So 625 squared is 390625; it is the “a” solution for both n = 3 and n = 4. On the other hand, 9376 squared is 87909376, which is the “b” solution for n = 4 and n = 5.

  2. This is really a statement about the 10-adics, right? There are exactly two solutions to x^2=x in the 10-adics (besides the trivial solutions 0, 1) and these things are the finite final segments of them.

  3. for really big numbers (>20 digits, i.e. >2**64) it’s better to use pow(b,p,m).
    for i in range(2, 45):
    a = pow( 5, 2**i, 10**i ) # == 5**(2**i) % 10**i
    b = 10**i – a + 1
    assert (a**2 – a)%10**i == 0 and (b**2 – b)%10**i == 0
    print(“%2d”%i,”%45d”%a,”%45d”%b)

  4. Noticed what Sol said: In some cases one of the “n digit solutions” is > 9*10^(n-1) +1 so the other solution has n-1 digits. So:

    1 digit: 1, 5, 6
    2 digits: 25, 76
    3 digits: 625, 376
    4 digits: 9376 (only one: 10001-9376 = 625)
    5 digits: 90625 (only one: 100001-90625 = 9376)
    6 digits: 890625, 109376

    and so on.

  5. Does the Python snippet work for others? Here’s what I get:

    $ python3
    Python 3.5.1 (default, Jan 24 2016, 20:23:47) 
    [GCC 4.2.1 Compatible Apple LLVM 7.0.2 (clang-700.1.81)] on darwin
    Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
    >>> for i in range(2, 20):
    ...     a = 5**(2**i) % 10**i
    ...     b = 10**i - a + 1
    ...     print((a**2 - a)%10**i, (b**2 - b)%10**i)
    ... 
    0 0
    0 0
    0 0
    0 0
    
  6. There aren’t always 2, for example if n = 4; though, yes, there are always “potentially” two.

    Thanks for all the interesting topics!

  7. Maslanka, I don’t understand your example. When n = 4, I get 625 and 9376. Am I missing something?

  8. In response to your query to Maslanka:

    From your original post:
    “It turns out that for each n > 1, there are two curious numbers of length n.”

    625 does not have a length of 4, it has a length of 3.

    The same happens with n = 5: your formulae would give 90625 & 9376, but only one of them has len=5. The same happens at n=12, and again at n=13.

  9. Dear John,
    I hope all is going well for you.
    You said that there are infinitely automorphic (curious) numbers. Do you have a simple proof?
    I have worked 12 years on magic squares: carres-magiques.com
    Now, I work on a new website: more than 70 texts on different mathematical subjects.
    Your proof will be in my Text no. 57. In that one, I give a nice proof of the result: there exist only 89 narcissic numbers.
    Great thanks,
    Claude Bégin
    P.S. Excuse my English, not so good!!

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