How do you factor a number into its prime factor?

Answer 1

It's pretty simple. Just factor the number until the numbers are prime. Prime numbers are numbers that can no longer be factored. It can't be divided by anything else but itself, and the number 1. 17 is prime because it can't be divided by anything besides 17 and 1, but 16 is not prime because it can be divided by 4.

Let's say you have 32. To factor this number into its prime factor, just take out factors of 32 until you can no longer do so. Since 16 x 2 = 32, we can take 16 out of 32 to make 16 x 2. 16 can still be factored further. Since 4 x 4 = 16, we take apart 16 into 4 x 4. Now we are left with 4 x 4 x 2. The two 4's in the problem can be factored into 2 x 2, which would leave us at 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2, or 25.