Question

Priya and Han both factored the number 80. Priya says they should both get the same answer even if they started with different factor pairs. Han disagrees. Who is correct

Answer 1

Priya is right.

Explanation:

The factors of 80 is 1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 10, 16, 20, 40, 80

The factor pairs of 80 are

1 x 80, 2 x 40, 4 x 20, 5 x 16 and 8 x 10

If Priya picks 2 x 40, then it's prime factorisation will be, 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 5 = 2⁴ x 5.

If Han picks, 5 x 16 = 5 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 5 x 2⁴ = 2⁴ x 5. This is the same.

Therefore, Priya is correct, because the factors of 80 are always the same, therefore which ever you start with, you'd always get the same answer.