What are the divisors of 5986?

1, 2, 41, 73, 82, 146, 2993, 5986

There is a total of 8 positive divisors.
The sum of these divisors is 9324.
The arithmetic mean is 1165.5.

4 even divisors

2, 82, 146, 5986

4 odd divisors

1, 41, 73, 2993

How to compute the divisors of 5986?

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.

$N mod M = 0$

Brute force algorithm

We could start by using a brute-force method which would involve dividing 5986 by each of the numbers from 1 to 5986 to determine which ones have a remainder equal to 0.

$Remainder = N - (M \times ⌊ \frac{N}{M} ⌋)$

(where $⌊ \frac{N}{M} ⌋$ is the integer part of the quotient)

5986 / 1 = 5986 (the remainder is 0, so 1 is a divisor of 5986)
5986 / 2 = 2993 (the remainder is 0, so 2 is a divisor of 5986)
5986 / 3 = 1995.3333333333 (the remainder is 1, so 3 is not a divisor of 5986)
...
5986 / 5985 = 1.0001670843776 (the remainder is 1, so 5985 is not a divisor of 5986)
5986 / 5986 = 1 (the remainder is 0, so 5986 is a divisor of 5986)

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 5986 (i.e. 77.369244535539). Indeed, if a number N has a divisor D greater than its square root, then there is necessarily a smaller divisor d such that:

$D \times d = N$

(thus, if $\frac{N}{D} = d$ , then $\frac{N}{d} = D$ )

5986 / 1 = 5986 (the remainder is 0, so 1 and 5986 are divisors of 5986)
5986 / 2 = 2993 (the remainder is 0, so 2 and 2993 are divisors of 5986)
5986 / 3 = 1995.3333333333 (the remainder is 1, so 3 is not a divisor of 5986)
...
5986 / 76 = 78.763157894737 (the remainder is 58, so 76 is not a divisor of 5986)
5986 / 77 = 77.74025974026 (the remainder is 57, so 77 is not a divisor of 5986)