In my PRIME

     It is few and far between when I can open up the assignment for the week and actually know how to do the homework without looking up examples.  This week we were asked to learn about prime numbers.  My elementary math teachers must have done a good job about hammering this definition into my head because the first thing I thought  was "A prime number is a whole number greater than one and is only divisible by one and itself."  I couldn't help but wonder where that little math voice was coming from; I wish it would show up more often.  As I started going through the numbers in my head I felt like I had a relatively strong grip on the concept.  I felt this way until they started shooting larger and larger numbers at us in the homework section.

     I started to think about ways I could double check if a number was a prime number without punching every number from zero to the given number in my calculator.  I started thinking about ways that I know it would not work out to be a prime number.  The most helpful was any even number other than two is not a prime number.  I started thinking of other rules that would work and ended up having to write down all of my wonderful "rules" because I kept forgetting them.  In the end, I realized it was not a practical tool for finding prime numbers since I could not remember a majority of my rules.  I decided to turn to the Internet to simplify the process and came across this website with different helpful ways to figure out prime numbers.  I liked the 2,3,4,5 rule and found this video to spell it out for me.  With these two tools, I could tackle any number my homework through at me.

     Once you get really good at figuring out prime numbers, you can take a peek at this Prime Number Chart to speed up the process.  I would not recommend jumping to this step until you figure out how to actually do the leg work.  If you rely on this chart and never learn the steps, you might as well not even know what a prime number is.  I always believe you have to be able to do things without the assistance of the Internet even though it is such a accessible convenience to many people.