From: Tim Bagot <tsb@earth.li>
Subject: Re: Help - definition of "amicable numbers"
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1999 03:48:46 +0000
Newsgroups: sci.math
To: Dan Curtis <daniel.g.curtis@erols.com>

On Thu, 21 Jan 1999, Dan Curtis wrote:
> Can anyone tell me what "amicable numbers" are?  My daughter has a
> question about them (she's 7th grade), but I couldn't even tell her
> what they were.

Amicable numbers are pairs of numbers which are coperfect, i.e. which are
such that the sum of the factors (other than itself) of each is equal to
the other.

e.g. 284:   1   220:   1
      |     2    |     2
      |     4    |     4
      |    71    |     5
      |   142    |    10
      |   ===    |    11
      |   220 ---/    20
      |               22
      |               44
      |               55
      |              110
      |              ===
      \------------- 284

HTH

Tim Bagot