What is a prime number?

Question

PLEASE phrase your answer in way that someone not good in math could understand. I can do basic math, but anything doing with algebra or harder and forget it. ALSO I don't just want a list of the numbers.

Answer 1

hey! that othr answer seemed really complicated (no offense 2 the other answerer) but a prime # is a number that can only be divided by itself and 1. easy as that :)

Answer 2

In mathematics, a prime number (or a prime) is a natural number which has exactly two distinct natural number divisors: 1 and itself. An infinitude of prime numbers exists, as demonstrated by Euclid around 300 BC. The first thirty-four prime numbers are:

2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43, 47, 53, 59, 61, 67, 71, 73, 79, 83, 89, 97, 101, 103, 107, 109, 113, 127, 131, 137, 139. (sequence A000040 in OEIS)

See the list of prime numbers for a longer list. The number one is by definition not a prime number; see the discussion below under Primality of one.

The property of being a prime is called primality, and the word prime is also used as an adjective. Since two is the only even prime number, the term odd prime refers to any prime number greater than two.

The study of prime numbers is part of number theory, the branch of mathematics which encompasses the study of natural numbers. Prime numbers have been the subject of intense research, yet some fundamental questions, such as the Riemann hypothesis and the Goldbach conjecture, have been unresolved for more than a century. The problem of modelling the distribution of prime numbers is a popular subject of investigation for number theorists: when looking at individual numbers, the primes seem to be randomly distributed, but the “global” distribution of primes follows well-defined laws.

Answer 3

You can only divide it by itself or one to get a whole number(no fractions decimals, or stuff). An example is 7. You can only divide it by 7 (7/7=1) and 1 (7/1=7) and get a whole number.

Answer 4

A prime number is a number that can only be divided by itself or 1. Meaning that if you divide it by any other number, the answer would not be a whole number. Like the number 7.

If you divide 7 by itself

7/7=1

or by one

7/1=7

you get a whole number, however if you divide it by another number

7/2=3.5

you get a number and a fraction/decimal.

You try it.  Here are some prime numbers,

1,2,3,5,7,11,13,17,19, 23

Answer 5

Any number that is only divisible by itself and one. You can only divide it into itself like 5 you can't multiply or divide 5 by anything other than 5 to get a whole number. 6 you can divide by 1,2,3,6... so it's not a prime. Let me know if you need more help.