Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Author(s): Jonathan Sondow, Erwin Just, Norman Schaumberger, Wallace Manheimer and David
Zeitlin
Source: The American Mathematical Monthly, Vol. 69, No. 3 (Mar., 1962), pp. 234-235
Published by: Mathematical Association of America
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2311065
Accessed: 31-03-2015 00:43 UTC
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content
in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship.
For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Mathematical Association of America is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The American
Mathematical Monthly.
http://www.jstor.org
This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Tue, 31 Mar 2015 00:43:42 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
234 ELEMENTARY PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS [March
DigitalRootsofPerfectNumbers
E 1478 [1961, 667]. Proposed by JonathanSondow, Universityof Wisconsin
Prove that the digital root of every even perfectnumberexcept 6 is 1.
I. Solution by Erwin Just and Norman Schaumberger,Bronx Community
College.An even perfectnumber must have the form2n-1(2n-1), where 2n-1
is a prime,which impliesn is odd forn > 2. Now 2n-1(2n-1) -1 = 22n-1- 2-1-I
(2"+ 1) (2-1- 1), which is divisible by 9 since each of the last two factorsis
divisible by 3.
II. Solution by Wallace Manheimer,Franklin K. Lane High School, Brook-
lyn,New York.Let N= 2k-1(2k4- 1). For k> 2 and even, 2k - 1 is composite,and
N is not a perfectnumber. For odd k, the digital roots of 2; -1 formthe recur-
ringsequence1, 7, 4, * . . . rootsof 2k-1 are 1, 4, 7, * .
The corresponding .
This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Tue, 31 Mar 2015 00:43:42 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
1962] ELEMENTARY PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS 235
ofa Polygon
Probability
E 1480 [1961, 668]. Proposed byLeo Flattoand A. G. Konheim,IBM, York-
townHeights,New York
Let the line segment [0, 1] be divided into n + 1 segments by n points
This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Tue, 31 Mar 2015 00:43:42 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions