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Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Prime Number

Prime Number Definition

Prime number is a positive, round number, bigger than 1, that has only 2 positive divisors 1 and the number itself!

That’s it! This is what a prime number is, explained in very simple words and. This definition might be enough for you to understand the matter, but we suggest that you take a look at the following lines:

So here we will answer the question – “What is a prime number?” going through some more details. It should be very clear, that for a number to be prime, it has too meet all of the following requirements:

1. It should be positive
2. It should be round
3. Bigger than 1
4. The number has to have only 2 positive divisors – 1 (one) and itself.

If ANY of these simple conditions are not met for a specific number, we can be very sure, that it is not a prime. Now to get extremely clear for you, have a look at the following examples:

* The number 8 is not prime, because it has more than 2 positive divisors (factors): 2,4,8,1
* 7 is a prime number, because it meets all of the conditions above and has only 2 positive divisors – 1 and 7.
* 991 is a prime number, because it meets all of the criteria
* 992 is NOT prime, because it has more than 2 devisors

The number ” 2 ” is the only even prime. As you know, every even number can be divided into 2, so this is the third sure divisor for any of them, except 1 and themselves. Condition 4 is not met.

Is 1 a Prime Number?

According to our definition, the number ” 1 ” soesn’t meet the third criteria – to be bigger than 1. Additionally, it doesn’t have two divisors, it has only one – itself. So we can say, that one is not a prime.

Every number that is not prime is called a composite number. Prime numbers are infinitе. Primes were explored for the first time by Euclid, nearly 300 years B.C.

1 التعليقات:

An interesting challenge using prime numbers :
http://www.futilitycloset.com/2012/06/12/transversal-of-primes/

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