Recreational Maths in Python - Alan Zucconi

pythonrecreational-mathematicsnumerical-sequencesparallel-computing

Abstraction: Python techniques for computing narcissistic, Kaprekar, and happy number sequences

Key points:

Python's arbitrary-precision integers (auto-cast from int to long) make it ideal for digit-manipulation sequences without external libraries
Narcissistic numbers: an n-digit number equal to sum of its digits each raised to power n; e.g. 153 = 1^3 + 5^3 + 3^3
Kaprekar numbers: square the number, split digits, left part + right part equals the original; requires careful digit-split logic
Happy numbers converge to 1 under repeated sum-of-squares-of-digits; sad numbers cycle through the melancoil loop [4, 16, 37, 58, 89, 145, 42, 20]
Parallel computation via joblib's Parallel/delayed enables multi-core sequence generation; too many processes add overhead and can slow execution
Python recursion depth limit requires iterative rewrite or sys.setrecursionlimit for deep happification chains

Connections: Alan Zucconi · Python Programming · Recreational Mathematics