8128 and perfect numbers

Image: D Sharon Pruitt ( creative commons ). Are you a numberphile? As a child, numbers were my first friends; some of them were the first loves of my life. Besides being fascinating in their own right, to my child's mind, numbers have personalities that seemed to step right off the pages they were written on. For example, the curled number six suggested it was optimistic, a little bit goofy, open to new experiences and quite self-sufficient. Whilst quite young, I decided I wanted to grow up to be like the number six. I am not sure when I figured this out, but six is also another sort of number: it is equal to the sum of its proper positive divisors, excluding the number itself. In short, it is a rare perfect number . In this fascinating video, we learn a little about another number; a number that was, for many years, the largest known perfect number: Visit numberphile 's YouTube channel [ video link ]. In this video, we met Dr James Grime , a mathematics professor at the University of Cambridge. Dr Grime is on facebook , he has his own YouTube channel full of maths stuff at singingbanana , and he can also be found on twitter @ jamesgrime The Numberphile project is video journalist Brady Haran's latest effort. You numberphiles will be pleased to note that it was launched on 11/11/11. Numberphile is on facebook and can also be found on twitter @ numberphile .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. twitter: @ GrrlScientist facebook: grrlscientist email: [email protected]