Copyright © University of Cambridge. All rights reserved.

'Abundant Numbers' printed from https://nrich.maths.org/

Show menu

Abundant Numbers printable sheet

Fruit spilling from a cornucopia

To find the factors of a number, you have to find all the pairs of numbers that multiply together to give that number.

The factors of $48$ are:

$1$ and $48$

$2$ and $24$

$3$ and $16$

$4$ and $12$

$6$ and $8$

If we leave out the number we started with, $48$, and add all the other factors, we get $76$:

$1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 6 + 8 + 12 + 16 + 24 = 76$

So ... $48$ is called an abundant number because it is less than the sum of its factors (without itself). ($48$ is less than $76$.)

See if you can find some more abundant numbers!