2 Apr
2016
2 Apr
'16
12:52 p.m.
On Apr 2, 2016, at 1:35 PM, Keith F. Lynch <kfl@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
What odd numbers, if any, are equal to the sum of their proper divisors?
If I didn't know that that's called a "perfect number," I'd be unlikely to be able to find a link to the enormous research that's been done on it. (It's very likely the oldest unsolved problem.)
There must be a better example. For this problem I would generate a list of even perfect numbers and get lots of hits on that. Somewhere in all that material there surely will be mention of the odd perfect number problem. I imagine that most interesting problems can be perturbed in some way so that their solutions generate a searchable signature of large integers. -Veit