Split a number in half, sum it, square it and get the number back

Question

The number 3025 when split in the middle gives us 30 and 25. 30+25= 55. The square of 55 is 3025.

What other 4 digits numbers have this property i.e. when the 4 digit number is split in the middle, the 2 numbers are added to each other and the resulting number is squared, we get back the original number?

Looking for an intuitive method to solve this.

Bonus: What method can we use to find 2 digit, 6 digit, 8 digit numbers with the above property? For example, Marius in his answer has shown that 494209 is one such number. (494+209)^2=494209.

Source: Challenging puzzles and perplexing mathematical problems by Dudeney

P.S: The book has given a solution which I am unable to understand. I will post the solution after everybody stops attempting this question.

Answer 1

daw's (now deleted) answer contains a good starting point. Namely:

Setting the equation $(a + b)^2 = 100a + b$ and changing it to $(a + b - 50)^2 = 2500 - 99b$. Here, $a$ and $b$ are the first and second halves of the four-digit number we want to find. The range of $a$ and $b$ are $10 \le a \le 99$ and $0 \le b \le 99$.

Now,

substitute $a + b - 50 = x$ to simplify to $2500 - 99b = x^2$. Then we get $99b = 2500 - x^2 = (50-x)(50+x)$. The range of $x$ is $-50 \le x \le 50$ (to not make $b$ on the left side negative); since the equation in question is symmetric, we can limit to $0 \le x \le 50$ and then substitute both $x$ and $-x$ later.

Let's apply some elementary number theory:

Since $99b$ is a multiple of 11, either $50-x$ or $50+x$ must be too. $$ 11 | 50-x \Rightarrow x = 6, 17, 28, 39, 50 \\ 11 | 50+x \Rightarrow x = 5, 16, 27, 38, 49 $$

The same can be said about 9. Note that $50-x$ and $50+x$ cannot be multiples of 3 at the same time, so one of them must be a multiple of 9. $$ 9 | 50-x \Rightarrow x = 5, 14, 23, 32, 41, 50 \\ 9 | 50+x \Rightarrow x = 4, 13, 22, 31, 40, 49 $$

Take the intersection of two results and we get

$$x = 5, 49, 50$$ $$\require{cancel} x = \pm 5 \Rightarrow b = 25, a = 20, 30$$ $$x = \pm 49 \Rightarrow b = 1, a = \cancel{0}, 98$$ $$x = \pm 50 \Rightarrow b = 0, a = \cancel{0}, \cancel{100}$$

resulting in the answers

2025, 3025, and 9801.

For 2-digit numbers, the equation to solve is

$$9b = (5-x)(5+x)$$

and the only way to satisfy this is

$$x = \pm 4 \Rightarrow b = 1, a = \cancel{0}, 8 \Rightarrow 81$$

For 6-digit numbers:

$$999b = (500-x)(500+x)$$ Since $999 = 3^3 \times 37$, one of $500-x$ and $500+x$ is a multiple of 27, and the same for 37. This gives $x \equiv 13 \text{ or } 14 \operatorname{mod} 27$ and $x \equiv 18 \text{ or } 19 \operatorname{mod} 37$.

and it can get tedious to list out all the possible candidates. More number theory to the rescue:

By Chinese remainder theorem, you can combine the modular equations modulo 27 and 37 into one modular equation modulo 999. Since the modulus is larger than the range of $x$ (between 0 and 500), we can simply remove the "modulo" part. The results are: $$x \equiv 13 \operatorname{mod} 27, x \equiv 18 \operatorname{mod} 37 \Rightarrow x = 499, b = 1, a = \cancel{0}, 998 \\ x \equiv 13 \operatorname{mod} 27, x \equiv 19 \operatorname{mod} 37 \Rightarrow x = \cancel{796} \\ x \equiv 14 \operatorname{mod} 27, x \equiv 18 \operatorname{mod} 37 \Rightarrow x = 203, b = 209, a = \cancel{88}, 494 \\ x \equiv 14 \operatorname{mod} 27, x \equiv 19 \operatorname{mod} 37 \Rightarrow x = \cancel{500}$$ giving the two answers 494209 and 998001.

I'm pretty sure the same method can be used for more number of digits. As the number of distinct prime factors of $99\cdots 99$ increases, the number of combinations of equations to solve increases as well, so you will eventually need a computer program for the job; nevertheless, it should find all answers much more quickly than brute force.

Answer 2

The math way (added second)

Let's say k is the number of digits... Write the equation like

$ (x + y)^2 = 10^{\frac{k}{2}} x + y $
Transform this to a quadratic equation and try to find y based on x

$ y^2 + 2xy - y + x^2 - 10 ^{\frac{k}{2}} x + x^2 = 0$

Solving this based on y you get

$ y = \frac{-2x+1 + \sqrt{4 \times 10^\frac{k}{2}x - 4x + 1}}{2}$

I know there is an option to get + or - before the square root, but if we use minus we get y as a negative number.

Now you need to make sure that $ 4 \times 10^\frac{k}{2}x - 4x + 1$ is a perfect square where x has k digits.
That's as a far as I could go.

(Maybe now I can change the code below to optimize it and make it run faster)

Solution using computers (added initially)

I know this may not count as an answer because I cheated a but with a some code (in my defense, I started writing this before the no-computers tag was added), but here it is just in case....

<?php
function findNumbers(int $digits)
{
    if ($digits % 2 === 1 || $digits <=0) {
        return [];
    }
    $numbers = [];
    for ($i = pow(10, $digits - 1); $i <= pow(10, $digits) - 1; $i++) {
        $one = substr((string)$i, 0, $digits / 2);
        $two = substr((string)$i, $digits / 2);
        if (pow($one + $two, 2) === $i) {
            $numbers[] = $i;
        }
    }
    return $numbers;
}

print_r(findNumbers(2));

You can run it on https://onlinephp.io/

It does not work for 8 digits because it takes to long.
but here are the results (ran it on my computer):

2 digits: 81
4 digits: 2025 3025 9801
6 digits: 494209 998001
8 digits: 24502500 25502500 52881984 60481729 99980001

EDIT to the code after applying "the math way".

<?php
function findNumbers(int $k)
{
    $epsilon = 0.00000001;
    if ($k % 2 === 1 || $k <=0) {
        return [];
    }
    $numbers = [];
    for ($i = pow(10, $k/2 - 1); $i< pow(10, $k/2); $i++) {
        $root = sqrt(4 * pow(10, $k/2) * $i - 4 *$i + 1);
        if (abs($root - (int)$root) < $epsilon) {
            $numbers[] = pow(10, $k/2) * $i + (1 - 2*$i + (int)$root) / 2;
        }
    }
    return $numbers;
}

print_r(findNumber(2)); //replace 2 with 4, 6, 8 to get other values. 

Same numbers pop up but now they appear faster.

Bonus here are the numbers for:

10 digits: 6049417284 6832014336 9048004641 9999800001
12 digits: 101558217124, 108878221089, 123448227904, 127194229449, 152344237969, 213018248521, 217930248900, 249500250000, 250500250000, 284270248900, 289940248521, 371718237969, 413908229449, 420744227904, 448944221089, 464194217124, 626480165025, 660790152100, 669420148761, 725650126201, 734694122449, 923594037444, 989444005264, 999998000001
14 digits: 19753082469136, 24284602499481, 25725782499481, 30864202469136, 87841600588225, 99999980000001

Answer 3

We are looking for $2k$-digit numbers $N^2$ such that adding their first half to their second half yields $N$.

This process is almost exactly a reduction modulo $10^k-1$, with the exception that the sum of the halves is not further reduced.

This implies that it would be better to turn our attention to $N$ itself.

$N$ satisfies $N(N-1) \equiv 0 \mod 10^k-1$. Since $N$ and $N-1$ are coprime, we can find the unitary factors $D$ of $10^k-1$ and solve the system $\begin{array}{rl}\\N\equiv 0\mod&D\\N\equiv 1\mod&\frac{10^k-1}{D}\end{array}$ to find each corresponding solution, noting that if $n$ is a solution for $D$, then $10^k-n$ is a solution for $\frac{10^k-1}{D}$.

And here are the solutions:

 (a,b) is shorthand for "0 modulo a and 1 modulo b"
k = 1
(1,9) N = 1 is too small
(9,1) N = 9 yields 81
k = 2
(1,99) N = 1 is too small
(9,11) N = 45 yields 2025
(11,9) N = 55 yields 3025
(99,1) N = 99 yields 9801
k = 3
(1,999) N = 1 is too small
(27,37) N = 297 is too small
(37,27) N = 703 yields 494209
(999,1) N = 999 yields 998001
k = 4
(1,9999) N = 1 is too small
(9,1111) N = 2223 is too small
(11,909) N = 2728 is too small
(99,101) N = 4950 yields 24502500
(101,99) N = 5050 yields 25502500
(909,11) N = 7272 yields 52881984
(1111,9) N = 7777 yields 60481729
(9999,1) N = 9999 yields 99980001
etc.

and a Python script that can very rapidly generate the valid squares, provided you give it the appropriate factorizations of $10^k-1$:

def euclid(a,b): #returns the least multiple of a congruent to 1 modulo b
    A = 1; B = a//b; D = a%b
    while D > 1:
        if b%D: k = b//D+1; A = (A*k)%b; B = (B*k+1)%a; D -= b%D
        else: k = a//D+1; A = (A*k-1)%b; B = (B*k)%a; D -= a%D
    return A*a

for k,L in enumerate([[9],[9,11],[27,37],[9,11,101],[9,41,271],[27,7,11,13,37],
          [9,239,4649],[9,11,73,101,137],[81,37,333667],
          [9,11,41,271,9091],[9,21649,513239],[27,7,11,13,37,101,9901]]):
    #prime-power decompositions of 10^k - 1 for k from 1 to 12
    res = []
    for i in range(2**len(L)):
        prod, div = 1, 1
        for n in L:
            if i%2: prod *= n
            else: div *= n
            i //= 2
        N = euclid(prod,div)
        if N**2 >= 10**(2*k+1): res += [[N**2,N,prod,div]]
    for i in sorted(res): print(*i)