Banda, Charity Mae T.

8-Gemini

Values Education

Perfect Numbers

The Pythagoreans produced a theory of numbers comprised of

numerology and scientific speculation. In their numerology,
even numbers were feminine and odd numbers masculine. The
numbers also represented abstract concepts such as 1 stood for
reason, 2 stood for opinion, 3 stood for harmony, 4 stood for
justice, and so on. Their arithmetica had a theory of special
classes of numbers. There were perfect numbers of two kinds.
The first kind included only 10, which was basic to the decimal
system and the sum of the first four numbers 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 =
10. The second kind of perfect numbers were those equal to the
sum of their proper divisors.
A perfect number is a positive integer that is equal to the sum of
it divisors. However, for the case of a perfect number, the
number itself is not included in the sum. The Greeks called a
number such as 6 or 28 a perfect number because the sum of
the proper divisors in each case is equal to the number; the
proper divisors of 6 are 1, 2, and 3, and their sum is 6.
Although perfect numbers are regarded as arithmetical
curiosities, their study has helped to develop the theory of
numbers. Euclid proved that a number n of the form (2 n-1)*2n-1 is
a perfect number if the factor 2n-1 is prime. For example, if n
assumes the value 2, 3, 5, or 7, the expression 2 n-1 takes on the
value 3, 7, 31, or 127, all of which are prime. For these values of
n we obtain the perfect numbers 6, 28, 496, and 8,128.
The Neoplatonists Nicomachus of Gerasa and Iamblichus of
Chalcis listed these perfect numbers and concluded that they
follow a pattern: They alternately end in a 6 or an 8, and there is
one perfect number for each interval from 1 to 10, 10 to 100,
100 to 1,000 and 1,000 to 10,000. They conjectured that both
parts of the pattern would continue, but in this they were wrong.
The fifth perfect number, which was discovered in the fifth
century, corresponds to n = 13 and is 33,550,336, with eight
digits rather than six. In addition, the sixth perfect number, like
the fifth, ends with a six.
In 1961, the twentieth perfect number was found. It contains
2,663 digits in the decimal representation and corresponds to
the case where n = 4,423. Today, thirty-seven perfect numbers
are known. The prime for the largest of these is 2 3,021,377, which is
909,526 digits in length, and the largest perfect number is

1,819,050 digits in length It is not known whether there are an

infinite number of perfect numbers.