Smith number

A Smith number is a number which in a given base, the sum of its digits is equal to the sum of the digits in its factorization. (In the case of numbers that are not square-free, the factorization is written without exponents, writing the repeated factor as many times as needed). For example, 202 is a Smith number, since 2 + 0 + 2 = 4, and its factorization is 2 × 101, and 2 + 1 + 0 + 1 = 4.

Prime numbers are not considered, since it is obvious that all of them satisfy the condition given above.

In base 10, the first few Smith numbers are

4, 22, 27, 58, 85, 94, 121, 166, 202, 265, 274, 319, 346, 355, 378, 382, 391, 438, 454, 483, 517, 526, 535, 562, 576, 588, 627, 634, 636, 645, 648, 654, 663, 666, 690, 706, 728, 729, 762, 778, 825, 852, 861, 895, 913, 915, 922, 958, 985, 1086

W.L. McDaniel in 1987 proved that there are infinitely many Smith numbers. There are 29,928 Smith numbers below one million. It is believed that about 3% of any million consecutive integers are Smith numbers.

There are an infinite number of palindromic Smith numbers.

Consecutive Smith numbers (for example, 728 and 729, 2964 and 2965) are called Smith brothers. It is not known how many Smith brothers there are.

Smith numbers were named by Albert Wilansky of Lehigh University for his brother-in-law Harold Smith, who noticed the property in his phone number (4937775).

External links

• Article on Smith Numbers at MathWorld

References

• Martin Gardner, Penrose Tiles to Trapdoor Ciphers, 1988, p299–300

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