Def: a pair natural numbers $a$, $b$, $a\ne b$ are an Amicable pair if
$\sum_{d|a,a\ne d}d = b$ and $\sum_{d|b, b\ne d}d = a$.
Ok. So I'm trying to optimize a calculation for finding the number of amicable numbers below some integer $z$. What I'm trying to figure out, is if there is some ordering to the pairs? Ie. Is it true that if $(a,b)$ and $(c,d)$ are distinct amicable pairs, then either $a,b < c,d$ or $a,b > c,d$ ? (I suspect it is true, but have no proof)
Also, does anyone have a smart way of approaching this that doesn't require me to crawl back to the computer? Thanks!
On the list given in the question, the 19th pair $(a,b) = (171856, 176336)$ interleaves with the 20th pair $(b,c) = (176272, 180848)$. There are certainly many more instances, but of course no one knows whether there are infinitely many.