1Cademy - Factors of a Number

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Divisible by a Number

Definition

Factors of a Number

In the expression $a \cdot b$ , both $a$ and $b$ are called factors. If $a \cdot b = m$ and both $a$ and $b$ are integers, then $a$ and $b$ are factors of $m$ . For instance, because $8 \cdot 9 = 72$ , both $8$ and $9$ are factors of $72$ . A single number can have many factor pairs: $72$ can also be written as $1 \cdot 72$ , $2 \cdot 36$ , $3 \cdot 24$ , $4 \cdot 18$ , or $6 \cdot 12$ , giving the complete list of factors of $72$ as $1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 12, 18, 36,$ and $72$ . Saying that $a$ is a factor of $m$ is simply another way of stating that $m$ is divisible by $a$ or that $m$ is a multiple of $a$ .