(The dot, «, indicates multiplication.) Note that 15 is written as the product of 3 and 5, and 20 is written as the product 2 + 2 + 5. A product is the answer to a multiplication problem. When 15 is written as the product 3 - 5, the 3 and the 5 are the factors of 15. ‘As a matter of fact, 3 and 5 are prime numbers (only divisible by itself and 1), so 3+ 5 is the prime factorization of 15; similarly, 2 - 2 - 5 is the prime factorization of 20, because 2 and 5 are primes. In general, A natural number is prime if it has exactly two different factors, itself and 1. The first few primes are 2, 3,5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, and so on. A natural number that is not prime is called a composite number. Thus, the numbers ing in the previous list, 4, 6, 8,9, 10, 12, 14, 15, 16, and so on, are composite. Note that 1 is considered neither prime (because it does not have hwo different factors) nor composite. When using prime factorization, ye can keep better track of the factors by using a factor tree. For example, to reduce 32 s ? using prime factorization, we make two trees to factor 30 and 45 as shown: