The fifth perfect number is 33,550,336

(written by Lawrence Krubner, however indented passages are often quotes)

There are a lot of fields where I can tell the difference between good science and a hoax, but number theory is not one of them. For instance, a perfect number is a positive integer that is the the sum of its positive divisors, and thus, the first perfect number is 6 (1, 2, and 3 are its divisors, and 1 + 2 + 3 = 6). I’m relying on Wikipedia here.

The next perfect number is 28 = 1 + 2 + 4 + 7 + 14.

This is followed by the perfect numbers 496 and 8128.

The fifth perfect number is 33,550,336.

Why does this matter? I have trouble telling the difference between number theory (which is respectable) and numerology (which is not respectable). Both seem to spend a lot of energy finding pointless patterns in numbers.