在《几何原本》卷九中,欧几里得给出了一种构造完全数的方法(Dickson 2005, p. 3),尽管此方法仅适用于偶完全数。在 1638 年写给梅森的信中,笛卡尔提出每个偶完全数都符合欧几里得的形式,并表示他看不出奇完全数不可能存在的理由(Dickson 2005, p. 12)。因此,笛卡尔是最早考虑奇完全数存在性的人之一;在笛卡尔之前,许多作者都隐含地(未经证明地)假定,欧几里得构造法生成的完全数包含了所有可能的完全数(Dickson 2005, pp. 6-12)。1657 年,弗renicle 重复了笛卡尔的观点,即每个偶完全数都符合欧几里得的形式,并且没有理由认为奇完全数不可能存在。与弗renicle 一样,欧拉也考虑了奇完全数。
至今,尚不清楚是否存在奇完全数,尽管已对高达 的数进行了检查,但均未成功,这使得奇完全数的可能性看起来不大 (Ochem and Rao 2012)。下表总结了最小可能奇完全数的更高上限的发展历程。
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