Last night at marriage group a teacher was describing perfect numbers. I had never heard the term before and my mind immediately sprang to Benjamin. He gets a kick out of factoring and this was based on factors. I couldn't wait to tell
him.
Perfect numbers are those whose factors add up to itself. Six
equals its factors which are 1, 2 and 3. Sounds simple enough. By contrast deficient numbers are those whose sum is less than the original number and abundant ones add up to more. Two numbers whose factors add up to each other are called amicable sets. One such pair is 220 and 284. Pythagoras said that a friend is “one who is to the other I such as are 220 and 284.” The factors
of 220 add up to 284 and the factors of 284 add up to 220. One is in the other and the other is in one. How friendly.
There is a story in the book Conjugial Love that
says it sweetly, without numbers.
"He is in me and I am in him."
Some people may think that numerals are far removed from love and life. But others have found power in them.
“Ed Madschriti, an Arab of the eleventh century, tested the erotic effects of these numbers by giving someone the smaller number 220 to eat, and himself eating
the larger. This may prove a valuable suggestion to a modern lover, who might perhaps offer one of these numbers made of cake or candy to his inamorata, while he avidly consumed the other....” *
* Recreation in the theory of Numbers — The Queen of Mathematics Entertains by Albert H. Beiler
