How do you write a number as a product of primes?

Answer 1

To write a number a a product of it's primes you first break it down into factor pairs. This is repeated until only prime factors are left.

For example: 24 = 6 x 4

Now 6 = 2 x 3 and 4 = 2 x 2. Since 2 and three are prime we stop here.

Finally we write this as a product: 24 = 2 x 2 x 2 x 3 = 23 x 3

An example can be found using the related link below.