ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Perfect number

Okay kiddo, do you know what a number is? It's something we use to count things, like how many cookies we have in a jar.

Now, sometimes we find very special numbers that are called "perfect numbers". A perfect number is a number that's equal to the sum of all its smaller factors.

Let's take an example. The number 6 is a perfect number. Do you know why? Because the factors of 6 are 1, 2, and 3. And if we add up 1 + 2 + 3, we get 6. So, 6 is equal to the sum of its factors, which makes it a perfect number.

Another example of a perfect number is 28. The factors of 28 are 1, 2, 4, 7, and 14. If we add these up, we get 28 again! So, 28 is also a perfect number.

There are only a few perfect numbers that we know of, and they get bigger and bigger as we go along, like 6, 28, 496, and 8128. Mathematicians keep looking for more and more perfect numbers, but they can be very hard to find.

So, that's what a perfect number is, a very special number that's equal to the sum of all its smaller factors. Cool, huh?