Factoring Basics
This article is all about what factors are, why factors are important, how to find out the number of factors a number has, and more!
What Are Factors?
Factors are just numbers that multiply together to make the original number. For example: 5 is a factor of 25 because it can be multiplied by itself 5 times to get 25. The same goes for 10 - 10 is a factor of 100 because you can use it 10 times with other numbers in order to make 100.
The opposite of a factor would be an "irregular" or "non-repeating" number. An irregular number doesn't have any other digits that multiply with each other in order to get the original digit (like 4). Some examples of irregular numbers include 5, 15, and 35.
So what about numbers that don't have any factors? Well, there are a couple of different answers here. The first answer is the most practical one (which I'll explain later in the article). This answer says to try and find as many factors as possible with a given number. The second answer is that the number has no factors.
Factors and Factoring
Factors are very much related to factoring numbers. In fact, if you can factor a number, then you can find out all of its factors! So what's this all about? Let's see an example.
Find six-factors (all of the factors, including 1 and 6) for the number 18.
The first step in factoring is to look at all of the obvious answers for factors that we would get from dividing 18 by 2, 3, 4 and 6.
Conclusion: The factors for 18 include 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 18.
Factors and Prime Numbers
Factors are also important when it comes to prime numbers . A prime number is any number that can't be evenly divided by any other number except 1. So the first prime number is 2 (because it is the only even number that cannot be divided by 2 or any other numbers except itself - 1). Another example would be 17 (because it has no factors besides 1 and 17).
The next thing that you might want to know about prime numbers is what their factors are! In order to find a factor for a prime number, you must first determine the highest common factor.
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Factoring Basics