OFFSET
0,1
COMMENTS
Jones proves that 38 is the smallest composite number that produces only composite numbers when 1 is repeatedly appended to it.
Stan Wagon, who is working on similar numbers ending in 3, 7, and 9, reports that the upper bounds for those numbers are 4070, 891, and 10175, respectively. - T. D. Noe, Mar 08 2011
Today Stan Wagon found a 28899-digit probable prime 851777...777, which eliminated 851 as a possible prefix for the 7-case. Because it is easy to show the 891777...777 is composite for any number of 7's, this means that 891 is the solution for the 7-case of this problem. - T. D. Noe, Mar 08 2011
LINKS
Vincenzo Librandi, Table of n, a(n) for n = 0..100
Lenny Jones, When does appending the same digit repeatedly on the right of a positive integer generate a sequence of composite integers?, Amer. Math. Monthly, 118 (2011), 153-160.
Lenny Jones and Maria Markovich, Generating Composite Sequences by Appending Digits to Special Types of Integers, Fibonacci Quart. 52 (2014), no. 2, 148-159.
Michael Penn, From the Benelux Math Olympiad., YouTube video, 2021.
Index entries for linear recurrences with constant coefficients, signature (11,-10).
FORMULA
From Bruno Berselli, Mar 09 2011: (Start)
G.f.: (38 - 37*x)/((1 - x)*(1 - 10*x)).
a(n) = (343*10^n - 1)/9. (End)
a(n) = 10*a(n-1) + 1 with n>0, a(0)=38. - Vincenzo Librandi, Jun 07 2011
MATHEMATICA
t = {38}; Do[AppendTo[t, 10*t[[-1]] + 1], {19}]; t
NestList[10#+1&, 38, 20] (* Harvey P. Dale, Sep 20 2017 *)
PROG
(Magma) [Seqint([1: n in [1..k]] cat Intseq(38)): k in [0..19]]; // Bruno Berselli, Mar 09 2011
(PARI) a(n)=343*10^n\9 \\ Charles R Greathouse IV, Sep 24 2012
CROSSREFS
KEYWORD
nonn,base,easy
AUTHOR
T. D. Noe, Mar 03 2011
STATUS
approved