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Divisor

From AoPSWiki

A natural number is called a divisor of a natural number if there is a natural number such that or, in other words, if is also a natural number (i.e divides ). See Divisibility for more information.

Notation

A common notation to indicate a number is a divisor of another is . This means that divides .


See the main article on counting divisors. If n=p_{1}^{\alpha_{1}} \cdot p_{2}^{\alpha_{2}}\cdot\dots\cdot p_m^{\alpha_m} is the prime factorization of , then the number of different divisors of is given by the formula d(n)=(\alpha_{1} + 1)\cdot(\alpha_{2} + 1)\cdot\dots\cdot(\alpha_{m} + 1). It is often useful to know that this expression grows slower than any positive power of as . Another useful idea is that is odd if and only if is a perfect square.

Useful formulae

See also

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