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Re: Perfect Number
Posted By: Matthew, on host 62.30.192.1
Date: Monday, September 3, 2001, at 04:16:12
In Reply To: Re: Perfect Number posted by wintermute on Monday, September 3, 2001, at 02:55:53:

> And how do you calculate a perfect number, anyway? I can't believe that it would be a matter of checking every possible number for perfectness? That would be way too time-consuming.
>

Any perfect number is of the form

(2^(p-1))(2^p - 1)

if 2^p - 1 is a prime. So any Mersenne prime, e.g.

2^3021377 - 1,

will give a perfect number

2^3021376(2^3021377 - 1).

As for evaluating those powers of two, that's a different matter.

Matthew

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