Undulating Number

A number of the form aba..., abab..., etc. The first few nontrivial undulants (with the stipulation that a!=b) are 101, 121, 131, 141, 151, 161, 171, 181, 191, 202, 212, ... (OEIS A046075). Including the trivial 1- and 2-digit undulants and dropping the requirement that a!=b gives OEIS A033619.

The first few undulating squares are 121, 484, 676, 69696, ... (OEIS A016073), with no larger such numbers of fewer than a million digits (Pickover 1995). Several tricks can be used to speed the search for square undulating numbers, especially by examining the possible patterns of ending digits. For example, the only possible sets of four trailing digits for undulating squares are 0404, 1616, 2121, 2929, 3636, 6161, 6464, 6969, 8484, and 9696.

The only undulating power n^p=aba... for 3<=p<=31 and up to 100 digits is 7^3=343 (Pickover 1995). A large undulating prime is given by 7+720(100^(49)-1)/99 (Pickover 1995).

A binary undulant is a power of 2 whose base-10 representation contains one or both of the sequences 010... and 101.... The first few are 2^n for n=103, 107, 138, 159, 179, 187, 192, 199, 205, ... (OEIS A046076). The smallest n for which an undulating sequence of exactly d-digit occurs for d=3, 4, ... are n=103, 138, 875, 949, 6617, 1802, 14545, ... (OEIS A046077). An undulating binary sequence of length 10 occurs for n=1748219 (Pickover 1995).

Wolfram Web Resources

Mathematica »

The #1 tool for creating Demonstrations and anything technical.

Wolfram|Alpha »

Explore anything with the first computational knowledge engine.

Wolfram Demonstrations Project »

Explore thousands of free applications across science, mathematics, engineering, technology, business, art, finance, social sciences, and more.

Computerbasedmath.org »

Join the initiative for modernizing math education.

Online Integral Calculator »

Solve integrals with Wolfram|Alpha.

Step-by-step Solutions »

Walk through homework problems step-by-step from beginning to end. Hints help you try the next step on your own.

Wolfram Problem Generator »

Unlimited random practice problems and answers with built-in Step-by-step solutions. Practice online or make a printable study sheet.

Wolfram Education Portal »

Collection of teaching and learning tools built by Wolfram education experts: dynamic textbook, lesson plans, widgets, interactive Demonstrations, and more.

Wolfram Language »

Knowledge-based programming for everyone.