Week 1 – Math 10 – Division tables

This week in Math 10, I have chosen to talk about division tables.

Division tables are a method to do prime factorization; which is finding which factors of a number are prime numbers.

A factor is a number that evenly divides into another, while prime numbers are numbers that can only be divided by themselves and 1.

Here is an example of the beginning of a division table.

Here, it looks somewhat like an upside down long division; it represents 784 divided by 2. 2 being a prime number that is also a factor to 784. Next, you write the quotient of that division right below it.

I will just complete the table now, and explain it.

With the division table, you keep dividing by prime numbers until 1 is reached. The prime numbers used to divide make up the prime factorization of the number; in this case, the factorization is:

2 $\cdot$ 2 $\cdot$ 2 $\cdot$ 2 $\cdot$ 7 $\cdot$ 7

Which can be simplified as…

$2^4$ $\cdot$ $7^2$

I’m not quite sure why, but division tables are incredibly interesting to me. It also gives me a bit of an opportunity to practice division, of course.

Cameron's Blog_

Now with an underscore, because there's 6 of us

Week 1 – Math 10 – Division tables

Leave a Reply Cancel reply