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2: NUMBER THEORY

  • Page ID
    203002
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    In previous math courses, you’ve no doubt run into the infamous “word problems.” Unfortunately, these problems rarely resemble the type of problems we actually encounter in everyday life. In math books, you usually are told exactly which formula or procedure to use and are given exactly the information you need to answer the question. In real life, problem-solving requires identifying an appropriate formula or procedure, and determining what information you need (and won’t need) to answer the question.

    In this chapter, we will review several basic but powerful algebraic ideas: percents, rates, and proportions. We will then focus on the problem-solving process, and explore applying these ideas to solve problems where we don’t have perfect information.

    • 2.1: Ratios, Rates, and Proportions
      This page covers the concepts of ratios, rates, unit rates, and proportions. It explains how ratios can be expressed and simplified and how rates compare different unit measurements. Unit rates aid in price comparisons, especially in shopping. The text details how to set up proportions to solve problems involving ratios, emphasizing the use of cross-multiplication to find unknowns.
    • 2.2: Percent, Discounts, and Taxes
      This page provides a comprehensive overview of percentages, focusing on definitions, conversions to and from fractions and decimals, and practical applications in various contexts. It explains how to calculate and interpret percentages through examples, emphasizing how base changes affect comparisons.
    • 2.3: Primes, Composites, and Divisibility
      This page emphasizes the role of prime numbers and their factorization in encryption and secure online transactions. It covers the concepts of divisibility, prime and composite numbers, and includes the Fundamental Theorem of Arithmetic that asserts unique prime factorizations for natural numbers.

    Thumbnail: Unsplash License; Volodymyr Hryshchenko via Unsplash


    This page titled 2: NUMBER THEORY is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Darlene Diaz (ASCCC Open Educational Resources Initiative) via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform.