D. R.

Kaprekar

Dattatreya Ramchandra Kaprekar (Marathi: दत्तात्रेय रामचंद्र कापरेकर; 17 January 1905 – 1986) was
an Indian recreational mathematician who described several classes of natural numbers
including the Kaprekar, harshad and self numbers and discovered the Kaprekar's constant,
named after him. Despite having no formal postgraduate training and working as a
schoolteacher, he published extensively and became well known in recreational mathematics
circles.[1]
 D. R. Kaprekar

Born Dattatreya Ramchandra Kaprekar

17 January 1905

Dahanu, Bombay Presidency, India

Died 1986 (aged 81)

Devlali, Maharashtra, India

Occupation School teacher

Known for Contributions to recreational mathematics

Biography

Kaprekar received his secondary school education in Thane and studied at Fergusson College in
Pune. In 1927, he won the Wrangler R. P. Paranjpe Mathematical Prize for an original piece of
work in mathematics.[2]

He attended the University of Mumbai, receiving his bachelor's degree in 1929. Having never
received any formal postgraduate training, for his entire career (1930–1962) he was a
schoolteacher at Nashik in Maharashtra, India. He published extensively, writing about such
topics as recurring decimals, magic squares, and integers with special properties. He is also
known as "Ganitanand".

Discoveries
Working largely alone, Kaprekar discovered a number of results in number theory and described
various properties of numbers.[3] In addition to the Kaprekar's constant and the Kaprekar
numbers which were named after him, he also described self numbers or Devlali numbers, the
harshad numbers and Demlo numbers. He also constructed certain types of magic squares
related to the Copernicus magic square.[4] Initially his ideas were not taken seriously by Indian
mathematicians, and his results were published largely in low-level mathematics journals or
privately published, but international fame arrived when Martin Gardner wrote about Kaprekar in
his March 1975 column of Mathematical Games for Scientific American. Today his name is well-
known and many other mathematicians have pursued the study of the properties he
discovered.[1]

Kaprekar's constant

In 1949, Kaprekar discovered an interesting property of the number 6174, which was
subsequently named the Kaprekar constant.[5] He showed that 6174 is reached in the limit as
one repeatedly subtracts the highest and lowest numbers that can be constructed from a set of
four digits that are not all identical. Thus, starting with 1234, we have:

4321 − 1234 = 3087, then

8730 − 0378 = 8352, and
8532 − 2358 = 6174.

Repeating from this point onward leaves the same number (7641 − 1467 = 6174). In general,
when the operation converges it does so in at most seven iterations.

A similar constant for 3 digits is 495.[6] However, in base 10 a single such constant only exists
for numbers of 3 or 4 digits; for other digit lengths or bases other than 10, the Kaprekar's routine
algorithm described above may in general terminate in multiple different constants or repeated
cycles, depending on the starting value.[7]

Kaprekar number

Another class of numbers Kaprekar described are the Kaprekar numbers.[8] A Kaprekar number
is a positive integer with the property that if it is squared, then its representation can be
partitioned into two positive integer parts whose sum is equal to the original number (e.g. 45,
since 452=2025, and 20+25=45, also 9, 55, 99 etc.) However, note the restriction that the two
numbers are positive; for example, 100 is not a Kaprekar number even though 1002=10000, and
100+00 = 100. This operation, of taking the rightmost digits of a square, and adding it to the
integer formed by the leftmost digits, is known as the Kaprekar operation.

Some examples of Kaprekar numbers in base 10, besides the numbers 9, 99, 999, …, are
(sequence A006886 in the OEIS):

Number Square Decomposition

703 703² = 494209 494+209 = 703

2728 2728² = 7441984 744+1984 = 2728

5292 5292² = 28005264 28+005264 = 5292

857143 857143² = 734694122449 734694+122449 = 857143

Devlali or self number

In 1963, Kaprekar defined the property which has come to be known as self numbers,[9] as the
integers that cannot be generated by taking some other number and adding its own digits to it.
For example, 21 is not a self number, since it can be generated from 15: 15 + 1 + 5 = 21. But 20 is
a self number, since it cannot be generated from any other integer. He also gave a test for
verifying this property in any number. These are sometimes referred to as Devlali numbers (after
the town where he lived); though this appears to have been his preferred designation,[9] the term
"self number" is more widespread. Sometimes these are also designated Colombian numbers
after a later designation.

Harshad number

Kaprekar also described the harshad numbers which he named harshad, meaning "giving joy"
(Sanskrit harsha, joy +da taddhita pratyaya, causative); these are defined by the property that
they are divisible by the sum of their digits. Thus 12, which is divisible by 1 + 2 = 3, is a harshad
number. These were later also called Niven numbers after 1977 lecture on these by the Canadian
mathematician Ivan M. Niven. Numbers which are harshad in all bases (only 1, 2, 4, and 6) are
called all-harshad numbers. Much work has been done on harshad numbers, and their
distribution, frequency, etc. are a matter of considerable interest in number theory today.

Demlo number
Kaprekar also studied the Demlo numbers,[10] named after a train station (now called Dombivili)
30 miles from Bombay on the then G. I. P. Railway where he had the idea of studying them.[1] The
best known of these are the Wonderful Demlo numbers 1, 121, 12321, 1234321, …, which are the
squares of the repunits 1, 11, 111,1111, ….[11]

See also
Prahalad Chunnilal Vaidya

References

1. O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "D. R. Kaprekar" (https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biograp

hies/Kaprekar.html) , MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews

2. Dilip M. Salwi (24 January 2005). "Dattaraya Ramchandra Kaprekar" (https://web.archive.org/web/20071

116164833/http://www.4to40.com/legends/index.asp?id=142) . Archived from the original (http://www.
4to40.com/legends/index.asp?id=142) on 16 November 2007. Retrieved 30 November 2007.

3. Athmaraman, R. (2004). The Wonder World of Kaprekar Numbers. Chennai (India): The Association of
Mathematics Teachers of India.

4. Kaprekar, D. R. (1974). "The Copernicus Magic Square". Indian Journal of History of Science. 9 (1).

5. Kaprekar, D. R. (1949). "Another Solitaire Game". Scripta Mathematica. 15: 244–245.

6. An informal proof of the property for three digits (http://mathpoint.blogspot.com/2006/12/mysterious-61

74-revisited.html)

7. "Mysterious number 6174" (http://plus.maths.org/issue38/features/nishiyama/index.html) in Plus

Magazine

8. Weisstein, Eric W. "Kaprekar Number" (https://mathworld.wolfram.com/KaprekarNumber.html) .

MathWorld.

9. Kaprekar, D. R. The Mathematics of New Self-Numbers Devalali (1963)nn: 19–20

10. Gunjikar, K. R.; Kaprekar, D. R. (1939). "Theory of Demlo numbers" (http://OEIS.org/A249605/a249605.p

df) (PDF). J. Univ. Bombay. VIII (3): 3–9.

11. Weisstein, Eric W. "Demlo Number" (https://mathworld.wolfram.com/DemloNumber.html) . MathWorld.

External links

"Mysterious number 6174" (http://plus.maths.org/issue38/features/nishiyama/index.html)

 Numberphile (Dec 5, 2011) 6174 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8TRcZklX_Q) a
YouTube video by Numberphile

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