School math, multimedia, and technology tutorials.
There are numbers that are named because of their special characteristics. Prime numbers for example are unique because they only have two factors, 1 and itself. Composite numbers, on the other hand, have more than two factors.
Speaking of composite numbers, there are different types of such numbers that you probably have not heard of. In this post, we familiarize ourselves with these types of numbers. » Read more
In this blog, I have written quite a number of articles about prime numbers. In one of my posts, I have emphasized that geometrically, the dots that represent a prime number can only be arranged in a 1 x p rectangular arrangement where p is prime. Composite numbers on the other hand, can be arranged geometrically into more than 1 rectangular arrangements.
Stephen Von Worley has given a more beautiful definition of primes and composites in his Factor Dance Animation . The brilliant animation is a rearrangement of dots (circles) that represent numbers into different groups every second. Its aim is to show the “compositeness” and “primeness” of numbers from 1 up to 10,000. Worley’s program used the algorithm Brent Yorgey, the writer of The Mathematics Less Traveled.
You can read more about the animation at Wolrey’s post titled Dance, Factors, Dance. You may also want to watch the beautiful animation.
Note: This is the third part of the Prime Number Series
In Introduction to Prime Numbers, we conjectured that the number of prime numbers is decreasing as the counting numbers increase. In this post, we discuss intuitively that there is no greatest prime, or that there are infinitely many prime numbers.
Before proceeding with our discussion, it is noteworthy to remember that a number can either be prime or composite. We also know that composite numbers are product of primes.
Fragment of the original "Elements" by Euclid (via Wikimedia).