03/11/2021
Mathematician Ramanujam didn’t have any close friends and someone asked him the reason. He replied that although he wanted to have close friends, nobody was up to his expectations.
When asked how he expected his friend to be, he replied, "Like the numbers 220 and 284!"
The friend asked, "What is the connection between friendship and these numbers?!"
Ramanujam asked him to find the divisors of each number!
With much difficulty, the person derived and listed them:
220 → 1,2,4,5,10,11,20,22,44,55,110,220
284 →1,2,4,71,142,284
Ramanujam then asked the person to exclude the numbers 220 and 284 and tell him the sum of the remaining divisors.
The person was astonished to find,
220 → 1+2+4+5+10+11+20+22+44+55+110=284
284 →1+2+4+71+142=220
Ramanujam explained that an ideal friendship should be like these numbers -- that they should complement each other. Even when one is absent, the other should represent the friend!
Hats off to the great mind who is on the world’s top list of mathematicians! 👏👏👏
