c





 
 are whole numbers (both positive and negative, including zero). So they are -3, -
2, -1, 0, 1, 2,3 etc. A negative integer is a negative whole number, such as -5 or -11.

 
 
 are positive integers.


  
is a number which can be written as a fraction where numerator and
denominator are integers (where the top and bottom of the fraction are whole numbers).
For example 3/4,

  
 are numbers which cannot be written as fractions, such as pi. In
decimal form these numbers go on forever and the same pattern of digits are not repeated.


 
 are numbers which can be obtained by multiplying another number by
itself. E.g. 16 is a square number because it is 4 x 4 .


 
 are numbers above 1 which cannot be divided by anything (other than 1
and itself) to give an integer. The first prime numbers are: 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19.

 
 are all the numbers which you will have come across (i.e. all the rational
and irrational numbers). All real numbers can be written in decimal form (such as 2.123).

A  
(or 
) of a number is a number which will divide into your number
exactly. So you can divide a number by one of its factors and you won't be left with a
remainder. For example, 6 is a factor of 12 because you can divide 12 by 6 and you won't
be left with a remainder as the answer is 2.

  is the result of dividing two numbers by each other.



 is the result of multiplying two numbers by each other.

 
 are the numbers that are multiplied by another number«
E.g. Factors of 20:
1 and 20
5 and 4


 

 


 

  

  

 


 


‡ To factorise a number, divide it by the first possible prime number.

‡ Take the resulting quotient below the number.
‡ If it is possible, continue dividing this quotient successively by the same prime number.
‡ When you cannot do the division by this prime number, divide it by the next possible
prime number.
‡ And so forth until the final quotient is 1.
‡ Finally write this number as a product of powers of prime factors.


 

Find the prime factor decomposition of 36.

We look at 36 and try to find numbers which we can divide it by. We can see that it
divides by 2. ..
36 = 18 × 2

2 is a prime number, but 18 isn't. So we need to split 18 up into prime numbers. We can
also divide 18 by 2.
18 = 9 × 2 and so 36 = 18 × 2 = 9 × 2 × 2

But we haven't finished, because 9 is not a prime number. We know that 9 divides by
3. 9 = 3 x 3.

Hence 36 = 9 × 2 × 2
= 3 × 3 × 2 × 2.

This is the answer, because both 2 and 3 are prime numbers.

We will also go over factor trees.

Î
! 
The least or   
"Î
 of two or more numbers is the smallest
number into which they evenly divide. For example, the LCM of 2, 3, 4, 6 and 9 is 36.
This is because 2, 3 4, 6 and 9 can ALL go into 36.

The ##  

"! of two or more numbers is the highest number
(factor) which will go evenly into them both. That is« the largest factor of all the
numbers.
E.g. The HCF of 4, 16 and 36 is 4. (4 can go into ALL of these numbers).


  

$

Giving the complete number for something is sometimes unnecessary. For instance, the
attendance at a rugby match might be %&%'(. But for most people who want to know the
attendance figure, an answer of '
 %&)))', or '
# %&%))', is fine.

We can round off large numbers like these to the nearest thousand, nearest hundred,
nearest ten, nearest whole number, or any other specified number.

 

Round %&%'( to the nearest thousand.

First, look at the digit in the thousands place. It is 3. This means the number lies between
13000 and 14000. Look at the digit to the right of the 3. It is 1. That means 13145 is
closer to %&))) than 14000.

 

The rule is, if the next digit is: (


, we '

'. '
, it stays at it is.

13145 to the nearest thousand = %&))).

13145 to the nearest hundred = %&%)).


Sometimes, rather than rounding off to the nearest whole number, you might need to be a
little more accurate. You might need to include some of the digits after the decimal point.

In these cases, we can round off the number up to a certain number of decimal places.

e.g. 3.487908012 = 3.49 to 2 decimal places (2 dp)

 


Sometimes we do not always need to give detailed answers to problems - we just want a
rough idea. When we are faced with a long number, we could round it off to the nearest
thousand, or nearest million. And when we get a long decimal answer on a calculator, we
could round it off to a certain number of decimal places.

Another method of giving an approximated answer is to round off using  


The word  means important. The closer a digit is to the beginning of a number,
the more important - or significant - it is.

With the number (%*+(,, the ( is the most significant digit, because it tells us that the
number is (#
 # and something. It follows that the 1 is the next most
significant, and so on.

We round off a number using a certain number of significant figures. The most common
are 1, 2 or 3 significant figures.




 
Any number can be written in 
.
There are three different types of decimal number:
exact, recurring, and other decimals.

An   
 
  decimal is one which does àot go on forever, so you can write
down all its digits. For example: 0.15

A


is a decimal number which does go on forever, but where some of

the digits are repeated over and over again. For example: 7.3333333333

Sometimes recurring decimals are written with a bar over the digits which are repeated,
or with dots over the first and last digits that are repeated.

- #
 are those which go on forever and don't have digits which repeat. For
example pi = 3.141592653589793238462643...



 
When adding and subtracting decimals add or subtract as normal, but make sure that you
keep the decimal points aligned.



 
 


 
 

Multiplying decimals is the same as multiplying two whole numbers. You just need to
remember the following:

‡ If there is one digit after the decimal point in the question, there will be one digit after
the decimal point in the answer.
‡ If there are two digits after the decimal point in the question, there will be two digits
after the decimal point in the answer etc.
For example to calculate 7.12 × 2 we work out 712 × 2 and then work out where to put
the decimal point.

There are two digits after the decimal point in the question (7.12 x 2), so there will be two
digits after the decimal point in the answer. Therefore 7.12 × 2 = 14.24

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