Perfect numbers and powers of two

449 Views Asked by At

Given any even perfect number $p$ we may notice that the difference between $p$ and closest power of two is also a power of two.

Some examples:

$8-6 = 6-4 = 2$

$32-28 = 4 = 2^2$

$512-496 = 16 = 2^4$

$8192-8128 = 64 = 2^{6}$

$...$

$33554432-33550336 = 4096 = 2^{12}$

$8589934592 - 8589869056 = 65536 = 2^{16}$

...and so on.

So, the questions are:

  1. Was this fact known before?
  2. Could we find an even perfect number which breaks the sequence?
  3. Is this sequence infinite?