Tma2

MU123 Discovering mathematics
TMA02
M3040733
TMA02
Question 1.
(a)
(i) 1560 is a composite number, that is, a number greater than 1 that is not a prime
number. Looking at the number 1560 it can be written as a product of 6 factors
(2x2x2x5x3x13). I started by dividing 1560 by 8 then continued until I had prime
numbers at the end of the tree.
It follows from fig1 that 1560= 2x2x2x5x3x13... in a simplified form I could write the
2x2x2 as 2
3
... ergo... 1560= 2
3
x5x13
I started with 8x195...but I could have used anything that ended up with whole
numbers. I checked my answer by trying 3x520 and got the same prime factors.
(ii)
RICHARD FORD 11 STARLING RD TEWKESBURY GL20 7TD
richdebtomdom@googlemail.com
01684276415
1
MU123 Discovering mathematics
TMA02
M3040733
Firstly I give myself a strong reminder that this is an addition/subtraction problem that
follows BIDMAS...
So, my first step was to add the
.
If the dominators were the same I could just add them...but they are not so I need a
common denominator, in this case I chose 12. I write the denominator 12 and then
multiply the numerator by how many times the original denominator goes into it... We
now have:
I now simplify the answer and get:
So, to recap:
Returning now to the subtraction... I have:
Again I cannot simply subtract because the denominators are different-I chose 42 as the
lowest common, applied the appropriate multiplication factor to the numerators and
simplified the answer:
RICHARD FORD 11 STARLING RD TEWKESBURY GL20 7TD
richdebtomdom@googlemail.com
01684276415
2
MU123 Discovering mathematics
TMA02
M3040733
I am not sure I have this right as it seems a little counter intuitive to have a minus
fraction!
(iii)
To simplify the surd
First, I combine the two numbers together-making the product of the surds to be two
numbers:
Now factor out a common denominator (I chose 3)...
=
Now I can split up the radical –the reverse of how I combined them:
The...