ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Amenable number

An amenable number is a special type of number that behaves nicely when you add up its factors. Now imagine you have a number of toys and you want to share them equally between your friends. You first need to figure out all the different ways you can divide the toys and see which one gives you an equal number for each friend.

In the same way, when you add up the factors of an amenable number, you will see that there are many ways to divide the sum of factors into equal parts. This means that if you have an amenable number of toys, you can share them equally between your friends in many different ways, so nobody has to feel left out or get more toys than others.

Amenable numbers are very special because they are not too big or too small, but just the right size to make them easy to share between people or divide into equal parts. They are also important for people who study math because they help us understand more about numbers and how they behave.