Prime Numbers
- ALL
- Textbook
- Video
- Presentation
- Demonstration
- Activity sheet
Textbook
Factors
The activity sheet contains a number of activities. The most appropriate to this list being the sieve of Eratosthenes to find prime numbers.
Secton 2.2 on page 4 of the text book looks at prime numbers and uses prime factor trees to express a number as the product of its primes.
Video
Wrestling with Primes
A video aimed at increasing teacher knowledge about how prime numbers are used in crypography.
For centuries, mathematicians have been searching for both larger primes and ways of breaking numbers down into their prime factors. Here we see how prime numbers are used in cryptography algorithms to help keep our money safe. Starting with Euclid's fundamental theorem of arithmetic, this video explains the role prime numbers play in internet security.
Presentation
Perfect and Mersenne Numbers
A Mersenne number can be written as 2n - 1, where n is a natural number, and students learn that the search for really large prime numbers is centred on these values.
This resource is designed to explore aspects of the subject which may not normally be encountered, to encourage new ways to approach a problem mathematically and to broaden the range of tools that an A Level mathematician can call upon if necessary
The Distribution of Prime Numbers
In this activity the distribution of prime numbers, proved by Hadamard and de la Vallée Poussin in 1896, is investigated using an Excel spreadsheet program, Autograph and the Prime Number Theorem.
The resource is designed to explore aspects of the subject which may not normally be encountered, to encourage new ways to approach a problem mathematically and to broaden the range of tools that an A Level mathematician can call upon if necessary.
Demonstration
Factors, Multiples and Primes
Prime Numbers – This video also uses factor bugs to find the factors of a number. The video shows that 11 is a prime number as it only has two factors. The list of prime numbers starts with the number 2 explaining that 1 is not a prime number as it only has one factor. There is a brief section talking about the history of maths, the work of Euclid, how prime numbers have a role to play in internet security and the length of the largest known prime number.
Activity sheet
Properties of Number
This SMILE resource contains three packs of games, investigations, worksheets and practical activities supporting the teaching and learning of the properties of number, and a booklet 'Squares and Primes'.
Squares and Primes is a booklet investigating prime numbers, primes and factorials, proof, Euclid and Greek mathematics.
