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The Perfect Number

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People often wonder, “What is the perfect number?” What they do not know is that there is more than just one perfect number; there are many. Today’s research tells us that there are forty-eight perfect numbers. A perfect number is a number that is equal to the sum of its positive divisors, excluding its self. 6=1+2+3 28=1+2+4+7+14 18=1+2+3+6+9 (= 21)
To answer the question of what a perfect number is you need to know how to solve for a perfect number, who has been involved in coming up with perfect numbers, the criteria, and interesting facts about perfect numbers. Perfect numbers are more complex than just deciding whether a number is considered “perfect” or not. First, what you have to do to get a perfect number. Every scholar has invented their own formula to result in a perfect number. The most common formula is to take the factors of a number and add them together. If the sum of the factors, except the number itself, results in the original number then the number is perfect. Euclid invented a formula that is also used to solve for perfect numbers: 2p-1 (2p – 1) Ex.1: 21 (22 – 1)= 6 Ex.2: 22 (23 – 1)= 28
In this formula p stands for a prime number, therefore in the first example two is the prime number being used. You have two as the base because this is what the formula calls for, and then you subtract one from your prime number, two, to get two to the first power. Then inside your parenthesis you have two to the second power, the base taken from the formula

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