What are the divisors of 50?
1, 2, 5, 10, 25, 50
- There is a total of 6 positive divisors.
- The sum of these divisors is 93.
- The arithmetic mean is 15.5.
3 even divisors
2, 10, 50
3 odd divisors
1, 5, 25
How to compute the divisors of 50?
A number N is said to be divisible by a number M (with M non-zero) if, when we divide N by M, the remainder of the division is zero.
Brute force algorithm
We could start by using a brute-force method which would involve dividing 50 by each of the numbers from 1 to 50 to determine which ones have a remainder equal to 0.
(where is the integer part of the quotient)
- 50 / 1 = 50 (the remainder is 0, so 1 is a divisor of 50)
- 50 / 2 = 25 (the remainder is 0, so 2 is a divisor of 50)
- 50 / 3 = 16.666666666667 (the remainder is 2, so 3 is not a divisor of 50)
- ...
- 50 / 49 = 1.0204081632653 (the remainder is 1, so 49 is not a divisor of 50)
- 50 / 50 = 1 (the remainder is 0, so 50 is a divisor of 50)
Improved algorithm using square-root
However, there is another slightly better approach that reduces the number of iterations by testing only integers less than or equal to the square root of 50 (i.e. 7.0710678118655). Indeed, if a number N has a divisor D greater than its square root, then there is necessarily a smaller divisor d such that:
(thus, if , then )
- 50 / 1 = 50 (the remainder is 0, so 1 and 50 are divisors of 50)
- 50 / 2 = 25 (the remainder is 0, so 2 and 25 are divisors of 50)
- 50 / 3 = 16.666666666667 (the remainder is 2, so 3 is not a divisor of 50)
- ...
- 50 / 6 = 8.3333333333333 (the remainder is 2, so 6 is not a divisor of 50)
- 50 / 7 = 7.1428571428571 (the remainder is 1, so 7 is not a divisor of 50)