Review of Introductory Mathematics FRACTIONSThis is the simplest form the fraction can have. To eliminate the lengthy process of trial and errorused in finding the LCD, you can reduce the denominators to their prime numbers.LeastCommonDenominatorUsingPrimesA prime number is a whole number (integer) whose only factors are itself and one. The firstprime numbers are:1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, . . . .By dividing by primes, you can find that the primes of 105 are:7 = a prime number, therefore, stop dividing.1053353557The primes of 105 are: 3, 5, 7A systematic way of finding the prime factors of larger positive integers is illustrated below. Theprimes are tried in order, as factors, using each as many times as possible before going on to thenext. The result in this case is:504 =(2)(252)=(2)(2)(126)=(2)(2)(2)(63)=(2)(2)(2)(3)(21)=(2)(2)(2)(3)(3)(7)To add several fractions with different denominators, follow these steps:Step 1: Express denominators in prime factors.Step 2: Determine the least common denominator by using all of the primenumbers from the largest denominator, and then include each primenumber from the other denominators so that each denominator can becalculated from the list of primes contained in the LCD.Step 3: Rewrite using the least common denominator.Step 4: Add the fractions.Rev. 0 Page 31 MA-01
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