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Today is the 116th birthday of one of India's finest minds, Mathematician Dattatreya Ramachandra Kaprekar.
He was born on 17 January 1905 in Dahanu, India.
He was also known as “Ganitanand”, was an
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He was born on 17 January 1905 in Dahanu, India.
He was also known as “Ganitanand”, was an
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Indian recreational mathematician was known for describing several classes of natural numbers which included Kaprekar, Harshad, and Self numbers. He is best known for discovering the Kaprekar constant named after him.
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He was a school teacher by occupation and is well known in recreational mathematics circles for his contributions. The fascination for numbers that Kaprekar had as a child continued throughout his life.
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He was a good school teacher, using his own love of numbers to motivate his pupils, and was often invited to speak at local colleges about his unique methods. He realized that he was addicted to number theory and he would say of himself.
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He published extensively, writing about such topics as recurring decimals, magic squares & integers with special properties. Kaprekar won numerous awards including the Wrangler R Paranjpe Mathematical Prize in 1927. He is best known for discovering Kaprekar’s constant 6174.
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To see the magic of Kaprekar’s constant, choose any 4 digit number where all digits are not equal. Rearrange the digits to form the largest and smallest number and subtract the smaller from the larger.
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Continue the process with this number and in at most seven steps you will reach the Kaprekar’s constant. Such is the magic of Kaprekar and his numbers.
7433–3347 = 4086
8640–0468 = 8172
8721–1278 = 7443
7443–3447 = 3996
9963–3699 = 6264
6642–2466 = 4176
7641–1467 = 6174
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7433–3347 = 4086
8640–0468 = 8172
8721–1278 = 7443
7443–3447 = 3996
9963–3699 = 6264
6642–2466 = 4176
7641–1467 = 6174
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He was not well known, however, despite many of his papers being reviewed in Mathematical Reviews. International fame only came in 1975 when Martin Gardener wrote about Kaprekar and his numbers in his 'Mathematical Games' column in the March issue of Scientific American.
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