Qin has arrived - my darling little car. He has the most wonderful number plate - a palindromic prime. 313 is a palindrome and a prime. Of Palindromes ... Palindromes are numbers which read the same forwards as backwards. So 313 is a palindrome.

Test it out! How far are you willing to go with testing this theory? Does it always work?
Can you be sure? How sure are you?
Do you notice patterns as you do these? How did you do them? Describe all your thinking!

And Primes

A prime is a whole number which can only by divided evenly by itself and 1. (1 is not considered a prime number.)

Now mathematicians are VERY interested in primes and they have very little interest in palindromes. There is a very good reason why.

I want you to think of a pile of stones. It has 5 stones in it. Another pile of stones has 6 stones in it.

Can you show me, with the pile of stones, why 5 is a prime and 6 is not?

Can you explain in your words why prime numbers are considered absolute?

They don't depend on the number system we use or the symbols we use to represent our numbers. Primes are very special numbers whether there are people around or not.

In fact, the people searching for extraterrestrial intelligence send messages with primes because another intelligent life form, they say, must know about primes and recognise these are special numbers. They draw pictures of them in the messages sent into space.

Thinking about palindromes and primes - how do you feel about them?
Can you see why mathematicians are much more interested in Primes?
Do you feel that way or disagree? You are welcome to feel any way you want about them!

Our car number plates have 3 numbers. I am told there are 14 palindromic primes with 3 digits in them like Qin's 313.

Can you find any more palindromic primes?
You may use ANY method you like to find the primes between 100 and 999 to test.

Your research skills are being challenged here. How do you go about finding them?

Why did you use the method you chose?