Achilles number

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Demonstration, with Cuisenaire rods, of the number 72 being powerful Achilles number Cuisenaire rods 72.png
Demonstration, with Cuisenaire rods, of the number 72 being powerful

An Achilles number is a number that is powerful but not a perfect power. [1] A positive integer n is a powerful number if, for every prime factor p of n, p2 is also a divisor. In other words, every prime factor appears at least squared in the factorization. All Achilles numbers are powerful. However, not all powerful numbers are Achilles numbers: only those that cannot be represented as mk, where m and k are positive integers greater than 1.

Contents

Achilles numbers were named by Henry Bottomley after Achilles, a hero of the Trojan war, who was also powerful but imperfect. Strong Achilles numbers are Achilles numbers whose Euler totients are also Achilles numbers; the smallest are 500 and 864. [2]

Sequence of Achilles numbers

A number n = p1a1p2a2pkak is powerful if min(a1, a2, …, ak) ≥ 2. If in addition gcd(a1, a2, …, ak) = 1 the number is an Achilles number.

The Achilles numbers up to 5000 are:

72, 108, 200, 288, 392, 432, 500, 648, 675, 800, 864, 968, 972, 1125, 1152, 1323, 1352, 1372, 1568, 1800, 1944, 2000, 2312, 2592, 2700, 2888, 3087, 3200, 3267, 3456, 3528, 3872, 3888, 4000, 4232, 4500, 4563, 4608, 5000 (sequence A052486 in the OEIS ).

The smallest pair of consecutive Achilles numbers is: [3]

5425069447 = 73× 412× 972
5425069448 = 23× 260412

Examples

As an example, 108 is a powerful number. Its prime factorization is 22 · 33, and thus its prime factors are 2 and 3. Both 22 = 4 and 32 = 9 are divisors of 108. However, 108 cannot be represented as mk, where m and k are positive integers greater than 1, so 108 is an Achilles number.

The integer 360 is not an Achilles number because it is not powerful. One of its prime factors is 5 but 360 is not divisible by 52 = 25.

Finally, 784 is not an Achilles number. It is a powerful number, because not only are 2 and 7 its only prime factors, but also 22 = 4 and 72 = 49 are divisors of it. It is a perfect power:

So it is not an Achilles number.

The integer 500 = 22× 53 is a strong Achilles number as its Euler totient of 200 = 23× 52 is also an Achilles number.

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gaussian integer</span> Complex number whose real and imaginary parts are both integers

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Euler's totient function</span> Number of integers coprime to and not exceeding n

In number theory, Euler's totient function counts the positive integers up to a given integer n that are relatively prime to n. It is written using the Greek letter phi as or , and may also be called Euler's phi function. In other words, it is the number of integers k in the range 1 ≤ kn for which the greatest common divisor gcd(n, k) is equal to 1. The integers k of this form are sometimes referred to as totatives of n.

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A composite number is a positive integer that can be formed by multiplying two smaller positive integers. Equivalently, it is a positive integer that has at least one divisor other than 1 and itself. Every positive integer is composite, prime, or the unit 1, so the composite numbers are exactly the numbers that are not prime and not a unit.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Factorization</span> (Mathematical) decomposition into a product

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A highly composite number is a positive integer with more divisors than any smaller positive integer has. A related concept is that of a largely composite number, a positive integer which has at least as many divisors as any smaller positive integer. The name can be somewhat misleading, as the first two highly composite numbers are not actually composite numbers; however, all further terms are.

The tables contain the prime factorization of the natural numbers from 1 to 1000.

72 (seventy-two) is the natural number following 71 and preceding 73. It is half a gross or 6 dozen.

63 (sixty-three) is the natural number following 62 and preceding 64.

A powerful number is a positive integer m such that for every prime number p dividing m, p2 also divides m. Equivalently, a powerful number is the product of a square and a cube, that is, a number m of the form m = a2b3, where a and b are positive integers. Powerful numbers are also known as squareful, square-full, or 2-full. Paul Erdős and George Szekeres studied such numbers and Solomon W. Golomb named such numbers powerful.

135 is the natural number following 134 and preceding 136.

A highly totient number is an integer that has more solutions to the equation , where is Euler's totient function, than any integer smaller than it. The first few highly totient numbers are

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Perfect power</span> Positive integer that is an integer power of another positive integer

In mathematics, a perfect power is a natural number that is a product of equal natural factors, or, in other words, an integer that can be expressed as a square or a higher integer power of another integer greater than one. More formally, n is a perfect power if there exist natural numbers m > 1, and k > 1 such that mk = n. In this case, n may be called a perfect kth power. If k = 2 or k = 3, then n is called a perfect square or perfect cube, respectively. Sometimes 0 and 1 are also considered perfect powers.

1728 is the natural number following 1727 and preceding 1729. It is a dozen gross, or one great gross. It is also the number of cubic inches in a cubic foot.

Euler's factorization method is a technique for factoring a number by writing it as a sum of two squares in two different ways. For example the number can be written as or as and Euler's method gives the factorization .

References

  1. Weisstein, Eric W. "Achilles Number". MathWorld .
  2. "Problem 302 - Project Euler". projecteuler.net.
  3. Carlos Rivera, The Prime Puzzles and Problem Connection, Problem 53