What is 30 and prime factorization?

Answer 1

The factors of a number are the whole numbers that can be divided by that number, and give a result that is also a whole number. For example, 4 is a factor of 12 because 12/4 = 3. 5 isn't a factor of 12 because 12/5 = 2.4, which isn't a whole number.

A Prime number is a number whose only factors are 1 and itself, for example 7. The only numbers that divide into 7 are 1 and 7, so it is prime.

Prime factorisation means finding all the factors of a number that are themselves prime, and then finding how many times you need to multiply each of them to get the original number.

Answer 2

All numbers have factors. These are numbers that multiply together to make the original number. Some of those factors are prime numbers. A number is prime if it only has two factors: one and the number itself.

Answer 3

In prime factorization, exponents are used to keep track of repeated factors.

The prime factorization of 72 is 2 x 2 x 2 x 3 x 3. In exponential form, that's 2^3 x 3^2