NUMBER THEORY - LECTURE 1

April 16, 2023

1 Number of factors

Properties:
Let the prime factorization of a number n is n = pa1 1 pa2 2 ...pakk where pi , i =
1, 2, ..., k are distinct primes, then
• the number of factors of n is τ (n) = (1 + a1 )(1 + a2 )...(1 + ak )
τ (n)
• the product of all factors of n is n 2

k k a +1
pi 1 −1
• the sum of all factors of n is σ(n) = Π (1 + pi + p2i + ... + pai i ) = Π pi −1
i=1 i=1

σ(n)
• the sum of reciprocals of all factors of n is n

Corollary 1
τ is multiplicative function. That is for any integers a, b such that (a, b) =1 ,
we have τ (ab) = τ (a)τ (b)

1
Corollary 2
For any positive integer n √
τ (n) ≤ 2 n
√
Proof: Let d1 < d2 < · · · < dk be the divisors of n not exceeding n.
The remaining divisors are dn1 , dn2 , ..., dnk . It follows that
√
τ (n) ≤ 2k ≤ 2 n

Applications 1
1. Find the number of factors of 3600.
2. Find the number of factors of 72000 that are not divisible(a) by 25 (b) by
100
3. Find the number of the factors of 346500 that are
(a) divisible by 35
(b) not divisible by 9
(c) not divisible by 45
(d) divisible by 45 but not by 100.
(e) are perfect squares.
(f) are prefect cubes
4. Find the number of factors of 3600 that are of form 4k + 2.
5. Find the smallest number with (a) 4 factors (b) 9 factors.

6. Find the sum of positive divisors of 10000 that are divisible by 25.
7. Find the sum of all positive two-digit integers that are divisible by each
of their digits. .
8. [AMC12A 2002] Some sets of prime numbers, such as {7, 83, 421, 659}, use
each of the nine nonzero digits exactly once. What is the smallest possible
sum such a set of primes can have?
9. Prove that if n is a perfect square iff τ (n) is odd.
10. If τ (n) is a prime numbre then prove that either nis a prime or a prefect
square.