What is a prime number -describe and use an example please.

Rather than doing your homework for you, Try this.

a prime number is an integer greater than 1 that has no positive inegral factor other than itself and 1. OK, the first 10 prime numbers are 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29.

I got that out of my book... haha

basically, a prime number is a number that can't be multiplied by anything but 1 and itself.

EXAMPLE:
2 is a prime number... 1X2=2... what else can be multiplied together to get 2? Nothing.
Same with 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29... and so on...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by little_emo_emily1437

what else can be multiplied together to get 2?

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0.5 and 4 :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by little_emo_emily1437

basically, a prime number is a number that can't be multiplied by anything but 1 and itself.

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I think you mean divisors. You can multiply prime numbers with whatever you want. But prime number can only be DIVIDED by 1 and themselves. Such as 2, you cannot divide anything into 2 except 1 or 2 making it a prime number. But for example 6 can be divided by 1,2,3,6 so it is not a prime number.

INTEGERS, cannot be the product of two INTEGERS except one and itself.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_number (which has much more additional info)

"A prime number ... is a natural number that has exactly two (distinct) natural number divisors. It follows that these two divisors are 1 and the prime number itself."

So a prime is a natural number, not an integer, and it must have exactly 2 natural number divisors (1 and itself).

A natural number is different than an integer in that the natural numbers are the set of integers > than zero.
(>= 0 in some definitions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_number)

A divisor of an integer n, also called a factor of n, is an integer which evenly divides n without leaving a remainder.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divisor)

Hope this mass of data and nitpicking helps someone! :)