In number theory, a sublime number is a positive integer which has a perfect number of positive factors (including itself), and whose positive factors add up to another perfect number.
The number 12, for example, is a sublime number. It has a perfect number of positive factors (6): 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, and 12, and the sum of these is again a perfect number: 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 6 + 12 = 28.
As of December 2024[update], there are only two known sublime numbers: 12 and (2126)(261 − 1)(231 − 1)(219 − 1)(27 − 1)(25 − 1)(23 − 1) (sequence A081357 in the OEIS). The second of these has 76 decimal digits:
6,086,555,670,238,378,989,670,371,734,243,169,622,657,830,773,351,885,970,528,324,860,512,791,691,264.References
MathPages article, "Sublime Numbers". http://www.mathpages.com/home/kmath202/kmath202.htm ↩
Clifford A. Pickover, Wonders of Numbers, Adventures in Mathematics, Mind and Meaning New York: Oxford University Press (2003): 215 /wiki/Clifford_A._Pickover ↩