The numerology of aliquot sums and perfect numbers

The numerology of the Pythagorean sages among the old yavana-s is one of the
foundations of science and mathematics as we know it. One remarkable class of
numbers which they discovered were the perfect numbers — teleios as they termed it.
What are these numbers? Let n be a number and d_j be all its proper divisors, i.e.
those divisors of n, which are less than n. Then we can define an arithmetic
function known as the aliquot sum s(n) thus,

\displaystyle s(n)=\sum_{j=1}^k d_j; d_k<n

For example, let us consider the number 10. Its divisors are 1, 2,5,10. Its proper
divisors are 1, 2, 5. Hence, s(10)=1+2+5=8. Now, if s(n)=n then n is called a
perfect number (termed pūrṇāṅka in Jagannātha’s Sanskrit edition of Euclid). From
Figure 1, we can see that the numbers 6 and 28 are perfect numbers. The Pythagorean
interest in them also becomes apparent from the fact that these numbers are
associated with certain natural periodicities that have an old Indo-European
significance. This becomes clear from their occurrence even in old Hindu tradition.
The number 6 is associated with the 6 seasons in brāhmaṇa-s like the Śatapatha-
brāhmaṇa and encoded into the śrauta altar. Similarly 28 is also encoded into the
altar according to the Śatapatha-brāhmaṇa and corresponds to the count of the
nakṣatra-s or days of the lunar month. The number 28 is also used in Vaidika
tradition as one of the prescribed counts for the japa of the Savitṛ gāyatrī

aliquot_Perfect_numbers_Figure1Figure 1

Returning to the arithmetic, with our above example of s(10), we can see that
s(n)n. Such numbers are called abundant numbers. Now, a subset of the proper
divisors of 20 add up to 20 (Figure 1). Hence, it is also a semi-perfect or a
pseudo-perfect number. There is a rare set of abundant numbers for which no subset
of their proper divisors add up to them; they are known as weird numbers. For
example, s(70)=74; hence, it is an abundant number. However, no subset of its
proper divisors, 1, 2, 5, 7, 10, 14, 35 add up to 70. Hence, 70 is a weird number.
The next weird number is 836. Thus, due their rarity majority of abundant numbers
are semiperfect numbers.

One of the high points of yavana brilliance was the discovery of a general formula
for perfect numbers. In Book 9, proposition 36 Euclid states:

“ean apo monados hoposoioun arithmoi hexēs ektethōsin en tē diplasioni analogia,

heōs hou ho sumpas suntetheis prōtos genētai, kai ho sumpas epi ton eskhaton
pollaplasiastheis poiē tina, ho genomenos teleios estai.”

If as many numbers as we please beginning from an unit be set out continuously in

double proportion, until the sum of all becomes prime, and if the sum multiplied
into the last make some number, the product will be perfect.

In modern terms we can lay it out thus: If the sum of the series of the powers of
2, where the power are integers \ge 0, is a prime number then the product of that
prime with the last power of 2 in the series is a perfect number:

q=\displaystyle \sum_{j=0}^n 2^j

If q is a prime then q\cdot 2^n is a perfect number. Let us take the first few
examples.
2^0+2^1=3\Rightarrow 2^1\times 3=6
2^0+2^1+2^2=7\Rightarrow 2^2\times 7=28
2^0+2^1+2^2+2^3=15 \Rightarrow Not a prime
2^0+2^1+2^2+2^3+2^4=31\Rightarrow 2^4\times 31=496
2^0+2^1+2^2+2^3+2^4+2^5=63\Rightarrow Not a prime
2^0+2^1+2^2+2^3+2^4+2^5+2^6=127\Rightarrow 2^6\times 127=8128
After this point the perfect numbers become much less frequent and large.
2^0...2^{12}=8191 \Rightarrow 33550336
2^0...2^{16}=131071 \Rightarrow 8589869056
2^0...2^{18}=524287 \Rightarrow 137438691328

Another way of expressing this is thus: Given a prime number p if M_p=2^p-1 is also
a prime then P=2^{p-1}\cdot(2^p-1) is a perfect number. The corresponding prime
numbers M_p are today famous as the Mersenne primes. For all p <100, the following
p yield M_p: 2, 3, 5, 7, 13, 17, 19, 31, 61, 89
The corresponding M_p are:
3
7
31
127
8191
131071
524287
2147483647
2305843009213693951
618970019642690137449562111

The corresponding perfect numbers are:

6
28
496
8128
33550336
8589869056
137438691328
2305843008139952128
2658455991569831744654692615953842176
191561942608236107294793378084303638130997321548169216

These primes M_p start getting huge and rare rapidly. We computed the above in a
few seconds with a modern programming language and computer. However, some of them
mark historic feats of arithmetic computation by the unaided human brain in the
pre-computer era. For instance, Leonhard Euler computed the 8th M_p (10 digits) and
the corresponding perfect number. The Russian village mathematician I.M. Pervushin
went further by computing the 9th of these numbers ( M_p= 19 digits). With the
Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search we now have 50 of them and the corresponding
perfect numbers. This also helps us to see why the M_p always end in 1 or 7 and the
corresponding perfect numbers end in 6 or 28. That the above are the only even
perfect numbers was established by Euler. Unlikely as they seem, there has been no
formal proof to show that no odd perfect numbers exist. The modern efforts also
show that the perfect numbers are rarer than what the yavana sages thought them to
be. The old Pythagorean numerologist Nicomachus states:

“It comes about that even as fair and excellent things are few and easily
numerated, while ugly and vile ones are widespread, so also the abundant and
deficient numbers are found in great multitude and irregularly placed – for the
method of their discovery is irregular – but the perfect numbers are easily
enumerated and arranged with suitable order; for only one is found among the units,
6, only one among the tens, 28, and a third in the rank of the hundreds, 496 alone,
and a fourth within the limits of the thousands, that is, below ten thousand,
8128.”

The above statement suggests that Nicomachus might have thought that for each
decade there is one perfect number. Alternatively, he might have simply stopped
counting with the greatest perfect number he knew. That it was the former is
strengthened by Platonic siddha (to use Gregory Shaw’s term), Iamblichus, even more
explicitly claiming that there is one perfect number per decade. That, however, is
clearly wrong as the next perfect number 33550336 is in the crores. In any case the
modern confirmation of the real rarity of perfect numbers vindicates the
philosophical analogy drawn from these numbers by the yavana siddha — the scarcity
of truly perfect things as opposed to the profusion of the supernumerary and the
deficient. With respect to the easy enumeration of the perfect numbers Nicomachus
and Iamblichus likely meant Euclid’s proposition. This rarity of perfect numbers
indicates that the sum of the reciprocals should converge to a constant:

\displaystyle C_P=\sum_{j=1}^n \dfrac{1}{P_j}= \dfrac{1}{6}+\dfrac{1}{28}+\dfrac{1}

{496}+\dfrac{1}{8128}... \approx 0.20452014283893...

It would be immensely remarkable if this constant turns up somewhere in nature.

Abundant numbers
In any case, this C_P provides a bound for the distribution of abundant numbers and
thus, brings us to the point of whether Nicomachus’ statement regarding the
abundant numbers is really so? This was what we set out to investigate in our youth
armed with a rather meager arithmetic knowledge and a computer. Computing the first
few abundant numbers yields a sequence like below:
12, 18, 20, 24, 30, 36, 40, 42, 48, 54, 56, 60, 66, 70, 72, 78, 80, 84, 88, 90, 96,
100, 102, 104, 108, 112, 114, 120, 126, 132, 138, 140, 144, 150, 156, 160, 162,
168, 174, 176, 180, 186, 192, 196, 198, 200, 204, 208, 210, 216…

A few rules become immediately apparent:

1) if P_j is a perfect number then k\cdot P_j is an abundant number for all k \ge
2. Thus, P_1=6 initiates a line of abundant numbers 12, 18, 24, 30…. P_2=28
initiates 56, 84, 112…

2) We notice that beyond these a few abundant numbers emerge in the interstices
e.g. 20, 88 etc. A notable class of these emergent abundant numbers are of the form
2^k\cdot p_j, where p_j is the j^{th} odd prime and k \ge 2. The first few of these
are tabulated below.

aliquot_table1

These are all shown as red points in panel 1 of Figure 2. One notices that for each
jump of k we get a jump in these abundant numbers. Of these, some like 12, 56 and
992 are already accounted for as doubles of the perfect numbers 6, 28 and 496 but
the rest are distinct. Their multiples, as with the perfect numbers, are also
further abundant numbers.

3) A few further abundant numbers emerge in the interstices, which have a more
complex description. They found new lineages of abundant numbers as their multiples
continue to be abundant numbers. The first of these is 70=2\times 5 \times 7. 70 is
the product of successive odd primes 5, 7 with 2 leaving out 3, which would yield
already accounted-for abundant numbers in a product with 2 via the perfect number
6. Another such is 2002=2\times 7 \times 11 \times 13. Here 5 is left out because
that will again result in already accounted-for abundants in a product with 7.
Likewise, leaving out 7, we have 1430=2\times 5\times 11\times 13. For further
numbers in this category we need the next power of 2, e.g. 9724=2^2 \times 11\times
13\times 17.

4) Till n=1000 odd abundant numbers are very rare. The A[232]=945 is the first odd
abundant number and till n=200000 there are only 391 odd abundant numbers as
opposed to 49090 even abundant numbers. Of these first 391 odd ones, 387 are
divisible by 15. The remaining 4 which are not namely 81081, 153153, 171171, 189189
are divisible by 9009. All odd abundant numbers necessarily need to have the
product of at least 3 distinct odd primes as a divisors. As with other abundant
numbers, the multiples of odd abundant numbers are also abundant numbers. Based on
the separation between the odd abundant numbers, we observed that the first of them
945 is the first of a lineage of odd abundant numbers, which are generated by the
formula: A_o=3 \times (315+210k), where k=0,1,2...51. Similarly, we observed that a
related formula A_o=11 \times (315+210k), where k=0,1,2...192 produces a continuous
run of 193 odd abundant numbers starting from 3465. After k=51 and k=192
respectively these formulae do not necessarily produce abundant numbers;
nevertheless numbers emerging from these rules continue to remain enriched in odd
abundant numbers. Of course, the other emergent odd abundant numbers might have
further less-apparent rules. In any case, it appears the difference between two
successive odd abundant numbers is most of the times divisible by 2 \times 3 \times
5 =30 and always divisible by the perfect number 6.