Definition:Perfect Number/Historical Note/Mistake 2

Source Work

1986: David Wells: Curious and Interesting Numbers:

The Dictionary

$28$

1997: David Wells: Curious and Interesting Numbers (2nd ed.):

The Dictionary

$28$

Mistake

... Iamblichus, not unnaturally bearing in mind that he had no conception of the number base $10$ as mathematically arbitrary, conjectured that there was one perfect number for each number of digits, and further that they not only ended in either $6$ or $8$, which is true, but that the $6$s and $8$s alternate, which is not.

The general consensus in the literature agrees that it was Nicomachus of Gerasa who made these conjectures, in his Introduction to Arithmetic, published some time around the $2$nd century.

Sources

• 1986: David Wells: Curious and Interesting Numbers ... (previous) ... (next): $28$
• 1997: David Wells: Curious and Interesting Numbers (2nd ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): $28$