Le Monde puzzle [#919]

A rather straightforward Le Monde mathematical puzzle:

Find 3 digit integers x such that the integer created by collating x with (x+1) gives a 6 digit integer that is a perfect square.

Easy once you rewrite the constraint as 1000x+x+1 being a perfect square a², which means that x is equal to (a-1)(a+1)/1001, hence that 1001=7x11x13 divides either a+1 or a=1.

sol=NULL
vals=as.vector(outer(c(7,11,13),1:999,"*"))
vals=c(vals-1,vals+1)
for (a in vals){
  x=round((a-1)*(a+1)/1001)
  if ((1000*x+x+1==a^2)&(x<999)&(x>99)) sol=c(sol,x)}

which returns four solutions:

> unique(sol)
[1] 183 328 528 715

An addendum to the puzzle is

Find 4 digit integers x such that the integer created by collating x with (x+1) gives an 8 digit integrer that is a perfect square.

Similarly easy once you rewrite the constraint as 10,000x+x+1 being a perfect square a², which means that x is equal to (a-1)(a+1)/10,001, hence that 10,001=73×137 divides either a+1 or a=1.

sol=NULL
vals=as.vector(outer(c(73,137),(1:9999),"*"))
vals=c(vals-1,vals+1)
for (a in vals){
  x=round((a-1)*(a+1)/10001)
  if ((10000*x+x+1==a^2)&(x<9999)&(x>999)) sol=c(sol,x)}

leading to the conclusion there is a single solution:

> unique(sol)
[1] 6099