Amicable Pair/Examples/17,296-18,416/Historical Note

Historical Note on the Amicable Pair $17 \, 296$ and $18 \, 416$

The amicable pair $17 \, 296$ and $18 \, 416$ were discovered by Pierre de Fermat in $1636$.

As such, it appears that he re-discovered what had previously been discovered by the medieval Arab school.

It was, however, the second amicable pair to be known of by the Western mathematical world after $220$ and $284$, known of old.


Sources

  • 1986: David Wells: Curious and Interesting Numbers ... (previous) ... (next): $17,296$
  • 1997: David Wells: Curious and Interesting Numbers (2nd ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): $17,296$
  • 2014: Christopher Clapham and James Nicholson: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Mathematics (5th ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): amicable numbers
  • 2021: Richard Earl and James Nicholson: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Mathematics (6th ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): amicable numbers
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