Do you believe in magic? Do you believe numbers can be magic? Today, Y6 investigated what happens when we add, subtract and reverse non-palindromic numbers. Follow the steps below and see if your mind is blown!

PS a palindromic number is a number that reads the same forwards and backwards for example 232. You must use non-palindromic numbers for this investigation.

Let’s investigate!
1) Write a 3 digit non-palindromic number in your book.
2) Underneath, reverse the digits and write them down.
3) Use a column method to subtract the smaller number from the larger number.
4) Write this number.
5) Reverse this number.
6) Now add these two numbers in a column.

What number did you get? Is it a coincidence?
Is it always true that when we follow this process for non-palindromic numbers we get an answer of 1,089?
Investigate!
Always true, sometimes true, never true?