Pattern of Numbers Why is it that $$7 = 10-3$$ $$77 = 10^2-23$$ $$777 = 10^3- 223$$ It seems that $3,23,223, \dots$ are all prime numbers. Is there any special reason for this?
 A: Primality testing for the first 1000 elements using Mathematica:
Tally[PrimeQ/@Table[ToExpression@StringJoin[{Array["2" &, {i}], {"3"}}], 
                   {i, 0, 1000}]]

{{True, 13}, {False, 987}}

The number of digits of those primes are:
{1, 2, 3, 8, 11, 36, 95, 101, 128, 260, 351, 467, 645}

Edit
Primes get sparse as you go on. For the first 2000 elements:
{{True, 16}, {False, 1984}}

The number of digits of those primes are:
{1, 2, 3, 8, 11, 36, 95, 101, 128, 260, 351, 467, 645, 1011, 1178, 1217}

Plotting occurrence number vs. number of digits on a Log scale:
ListLogPlot[Flatten@Position[b, True], InterpolationOrder -> 3, 
            Joined -> True, Mesh -> Full]


A: No. $7777=10^4-2223$, and $2223=3\cdot 741$ is not prime. More generally, $$10^n=\underset{n}{\underbrace{7\dots 7}}+\underset{n-1}{\underbrace{2\dots 2}}3\;,$$ and if $n-1$ is a multiple of $3$, then $$\underset{n-1}{\underbrace{2\dots 2}}3$$ is guaranteed to be a multiple of $3$. Thus, $$\underset{n-1}{\underbrace{2\dots 2}}3$$ is composite for $n=4,7,10,13,\dots$.
