Wednesday, 20 May 2026

Dual Attractors

I've written about attractors, vortices, vorticals and captives in many earlier posts. In my nomenclature attractors can be prime/non-prime or odd/even:

  • a prime/non-prime attractor has sums of prime digits and non-prime digits that are equal
  • an odd/even attractor has sums of odd and even digits that are equal
An example of a prime/non-prime attractor would be 28330 where 2 + 3 + 3 = 8 + 0. Other numbers do not have this balance and under the recursion:

number --> number + sum of prime digits - sum of non-prime digits

some will be "attracted" to 28330, meaning that repeated application of the recursion will lead to the attractor. In the case of 28330, there are 19 such numbers (termed captives):
28327, 28331, 28332, 28333, 28334, 28335, 28336, 28337, 28338, 28339, 28340, 28341, 28342, 28343, 28344, 28345, 28346, 28348, 28349
An example of an odd/even attractor would be 29612 where 9 + 1 = 2 + 6 + 2. Other numbers again do not have this balance and under the recursion:

number --> number + sum of odd digits - sum of even digits

some will be "attracted" to 29612, meaning that repeated applications of the recursion will lead to the attractor. In the case of 29612, there are 20 such numbers (termed captives):
29517, 29537, 29559, 29571, 29583, 29585, 29587, 29590, 29591, 29592, 29594, 29596, 29598, 29605, 29610, 29611, 29613, 29614, 29616, 29618

Some attractors can be both prime/non-prime and odd/even and in the range up to 40000 there are 223 of them (permalink):

0, 112, 121, 211, 336, 358, 363, 385, 538, 583, 633, 835, 853, 1012, 1021, 1102, 1120, 1201, 1210, 2011, 2101, 2110, 3036, 3058, 3063, 3085, 3306, 3360, 3445, 3454, 3467, 3476, 3508, 3544, 3580, 3603, 3630, 3647, 3674, 3746, 3764, 3805, 3850, 4345, 4354, 4367, 4376, 4435, 4453, 4534, 4543, 4556, 4565, 4578, 4587, 4637, 4655, 4673, 4736, 4758, 4763, 4785, 4857, 4875, 5038, 5083, 5308, 5344, 5380, 5434, 5443, 5456, 5465, 5478, 5487, 5546, 5564, 5645, 5654, 5667, 5676, 5748, 5766, 5784, 5803, 5830, 5847, 5874, 6033, 6303, 6330, 6347, 6374, 6437, 6455, 6473, 6545, 6554, 6567, 6576, 6657, 6675, 6734, 6743, 6756, 6765, 6778, 6787, 6877, 7346, 7364, 7436, 7458, 7463, 7485, 7548, 7566, 7584, 7634, 7643, 7656, 7665, 7678, 7687, 7768, 7786, 7845, 7854, 7867, 7876, 8035, 8053, 8305, 8350, 8457, 8475, 8503, 8530, 8547, 8574, 8677, 8745, 8754, 8767, 8776, 10012, 10021, 10102, 10120, 10201, 10210, 11002, 11020, 11200, 12001, 12010, 12100, 20011, 20101, 20110, 21001, 21010, 21100, 30036, 30058, 30063, 30085, 30306, 30360, 30445, 30454, 30467, 30476, 30508, 30544, 30580, 30603, 30630, 30647, 30674, 30746, 30764, 30805, 30850, 33006, 33060, 33600, 34045, 34054, 34067, 34076, 34405, 34450, 34504, 34540, 34607, 34670, 34706, 34760, 35008, 35044, 35080, 35404, 35440, 35800, 36003, 36030, 36047, 36074, 36300, 36407, 36470, 36704, 36740, 37046, 37064, 37406, 37460, 37604, 37640, 38005, 38050, 38500

Let's take 37640 as an example:

  • it is a prime attractor since prime digits 3 + 7 = 6 + 4 + 0 (non-prime digits)

    It has 14 captives: 37612, 37615, 37617, 37623, 37627, 37632, 37633, 37641, 37642, 37643, 37644, 37646, 37648, 37649

  • it is an odd/even attractor since odd digits 3 + 7 = 6 + 4 + 0 (even digits)

    It has 11 captives: 37611, 37617, 37619, 37629, 37633, 37641, 37642, 37643, 37644, 37646, 37648

Of course the order of digits makes no difference and so many of these 223 numbers are just permutations of another's digits and 0's can be added anywhere because they do not affect the sum. Take 358 as an example. Permutations of its digits with or without 0 added include 385, 538, 583, 835, 853, 3058, 3085, 3508, 3580, 3805, 3850 etc.

In fact if we strip out the zeroes and put the digits in ascending order then the above list of 223 reduces to merely 112, 336, 358, 3445, 3467, 4556, 4578, 5667, 6778.

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