# Help me

1. Nov 12, 2005

### shravan

how to calculate the number of prime factors of 360? please give the method

2. Nov 13, 2005

### Tide

HINT: Factor the number. :)

P.S. And, no, I am not being glib!

3. Nov 13, 2005

### HallsofIvy

Staff Emeritus
As Tide said: start factoring. It's not that hard. I'll get you started:

360= 2(180)= 2(2)(90)= ...
surely you can do the rest yourself. Did you mean number of distinct prime factors or just number of prime factors (i.e. counting "2" more than once).

4. Nov 13, 2005

### shravan

sorry re question

I am sorry my question was wrong .however I wanted to ask how to find the no: of perfect squares in 360 without factorizing. I am sorry for sending the wrong question.

5. Nov 14, 2005

### bomba923

That's a different question; prime factorization of 360 yields
$$360 = 2^3 3^2 5$$
and therefore the only perfect-square factors included are
$${\{1,4,9,36\}}$$
from observing the prime factorization. There are only four perfect-square factors of 360.
(The "1" is trivial tho )

*Then again, I'll reply later when I'll write an explicitly mathematical way to calculate the quantity of perfect-square factors of 360-->without factorization, as you mentioned

Last edited: Nov 14, 2005