Palindromes

In your book, Maths Mela (Chapter 4, We the Travellers — II), Nitin likes numbers that read the same from left to right and from right to left. Such numbers are called palindrome numbers. 22, 363, 404 and 8,558 are palindromes. Read 8,558 from the left: 8, 5, 5, 8. From the right: 8, 5, 5, 8. The same!

To test a number, read its digits backwards. 8,585 backwards is 5, 8, 5, 8, which is 5,858, a different number, so 8,585 is not a palindrome.

The palindromes between 100 and 200 all start with 1, so they must also end with 1. The middle digit can be anything from 0 to 9: 101, 111, 121, 131, 141, 151, 161, 171, 181, 191. That makes 10 palindromes. 200 is not one, because backwards it reads 002.

Between 900 and 1,200, the 3-digit palindromes are 909, 919, 929 and so on up to 999. After 999 comes 1,000, which is not a palindrome, and then 1,001. The next is 1,111. Between 25,000 and 27,000 there are palindromes like 25,052, 25,152 … 25,952 and 26,062 … 26,962.