A palindromic number is a number whose digits, with decimal representation usually assumed, are the same read backward, for example, 5885.
They are studied in recreational mathematics where palindromic numbers with special properties are sought.
Four of the fictional Pokémon species have palindromic names in English (Eevee, Girafarig, Ho-Oh, and Alomomola).
The 1970s pop band ABBA is a palindrome using the starting letter of the first name of each of the four band members.
This palindrome, called the Sator Square, consists of a sentence written in Latin: "Sator Arepo Tenet Opera Rotas" ("The sower Arepo holds with effort the wheels").
It is remarkable for the fact that the first letters of each word form the first word, the second letters form the second word, and so forth.
It is likely that this palindrome is from medieval rather than ancient times.
There are also word-unit palindromes in which the unit of reversal is the word ("Is it crazy how saying sentences backwards creates backwards sentences saying how crazy it is? Word-unit palindromes were made popular in the recreational linguistics community by J. Several in French and Latin date to the Middle Ages.
Palindromes often consist of a sentence or phrase, e.g., "Mr.
The number 59 becomes a palindrome after three iterations: 59 95 = 154; 154 451 = 605; 605 506 = 1111, so 59 is not a Lychrel number either.
Numbers such as 196 are thought to never become palindromes when this reversal process is carried out and are therefore suspected to be Lychrel numbers.