Compute the prime factors of a given natural number.
A prime number is only evenly divisible by itself and 1.
Note that 1 is not a prime number.
What are the prime factors of 60?
- Our first divisor is 2. 2 goes into 60, leaving 30.
- 2 goes into 30, leaving 15.
- 2 doesn't go cleanly into 15. So let's move on to our next divisor, 3.
- 3 goes cleanly into 15, leaving 5.
- 3 does not go cleanly into 5. The next possible factor is 4.
- 4 does not go cleanly into 5. The next possible factor is 5.
- 5 does go cleanly into 5.
- We're left only with 1, so now, we're done.
Our successful divisors in that computation represent the list of prime factors of 60: 2, 2, 3, and 5.
You can check this yourself:
2 * 2 * 3 * 5
= 4 * 15
= 60
Success!