McGraw Hill Integrated II, 2012
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McGraw Hill Integrated II, 2012 View details
3. Simplifying Radical Expressions
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Exercise 84 Page 250

The prime factorization of a composite number is the number written as a product of its prime factors.

3^2* 2* 5

Practice makes perfect

Let's start by recalling the definition of two important terms.

Term Definition Examples
Prime Number A number that has exactly two positive factors, 1 and itself. 3, 5, 13
Composite Number A number that is not a prime number. 4, 12, 63

We want to write the prime factorization of 90. The prime factorization of a composite number is the number written as a product of its prime factors. We will use factor pairs and a factor tree to find the desired prime factorization. The factor tree is complete when only prime factors appear in the product.

The prime factorization of 90 is 3* 3* 2* 5, or 3^2* 2* 5.