I had the pleasure of a great conversation with Mike_L the other day and he showed me a rather interesting note. It involved digits that when the entire number was rotated 180 degrees, it looked like the same number. I asked him how many of those were there and we figured it out. Then I wanted to figure out the number of radar notes per run of 10 million notes.
Here's our results:
4-digit radars: 10x9x8x7 = 5040
3-digit radars: 10x9x8x6 = 4320
2-digit radars: 10x9x7 = 630
Solid radars: 10-1* = 9
Total radars and solids: 9999
So, one can see why 3- and 4-digit radars are clumped together in the Charlton guide... They account for 9360 of the possible 9999.
Now, here's what sparked this conversation... Mike showed me a note with a number like 9908066. Notice that if you rotate that whole number around by 180 degrees, it looks exactly like it did before, but the note would obviously be upside-down and the prefix wouldn't be in the right place. I thought that was really cool.
This can only be achieved using {0, 6, 8, 9} for the first three digits and {0, 8} for the centre digit, then the corresponding "flipped" digit in the right spot of the last 3 digits. By "flipped", I mean that 0->0, 6->9, 8->8 and 9->6. You can't use 1s because of a little "tick" at the top of them that makes them non-symmetrical. Using this information, we figured out that there are only 127 (4x4x4x2-1)* possible notes per run of 10,000,000 that would be "rotators" like the one Mike showed me. That means that they're a little more common than solid radars and million-numbered notes, but more scarce than 2-digit radars!
*Subtracting one because 0000000 is always removed and destroyed.
Some other examples of "rotators" are:
9098606
9860986 (also a repeater)
8888888 (also a solid radar)
6668999
0090600
6600099
8998668
« Last Edit: March 05, 2004, 11:37:50 pm by BWJM »
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BWJM, F.O.N.A.
Life Member of CPMS, RCNA, ONA, ANA, IBNS, WCS.
President, IBNS Ontario Chapter.
Treasurer, Waterloo Coin Society.
Show Chair, Cambridge Coin Show.
Fellow of the Ontario Numismatic Association.