You know about factoring numbers. You know for instance that 7 and 2 are both factors of 14. You also know that 4 and 6 are factors of 24. In this lesson we are going to talk about prime factoring which takes factoring one step beyond what you may already know.
The first thing you need to know in order to prime factor is what a prime
number is to start with.
PRIME NUMBER: Any number which has as factors itself and one and no other numbers. PRIME NUMBERS: 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13. NOT PRIME NUMBERS: 4, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12. 4 is not a prime number because it has 2 as a factor. 2 is a prime number because it has no other factors besides itself and 1. 1 doesn't really count as a prime number.