Divisors of a number are the integers that can divide that number without leaving a remainder. In simpler terms, when you divide a number by one of its divisors, the result is a whole number (also called an integer). The purpose of this article is to explain what divisors are and how to find them, using the example of the number 308.
To understand divisors, we first need to know what division is. In division, you have three important terms:
- Dividend: This is the number you want to divide. In our example, the dividend is 308.
- Divisor: This is the number you are dividing by. It is one of the numbers we will check to see if it is a divisor of 308.
- Quotient: This is the result of the division. It tells us how many times the divisor fits into the dividend.
For example, let’s look at the division of 308 by 1:
308 / 1 = 308
In this case, 308 is the dividend, 1 is the divisor, and 308 is the quotient.
Now, let’s find the divisors of the number 308. We will do this by checking all integers starting from 1 up to 308 itself. We want to see if dividing 308 by each of these integers results in a whole number.
Here’s how to calculate the divisors step by step:
- Start with the number 1.
- Divide 308 by 1, and check if the result is a whole number.
- Move to the next integer and repeat the division until you reach the number 308.
Let’s see the division calculations for the first ten integers:
- 308 / 1 = 308 (whole number)
- 308 / 2 = 154 (whole number)
- 308 / 3 = 102.67 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 4 = 77 (whole number)
- 308 / 5 = 61.6 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 6 = 51.33 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 7 = 44 (whole number)
- 308 / 8 = 38.5 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 9 = 34.222 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 10 = 30.8 (not a whole number)
From the calculations above, we can see that the integers that produced whole numbers (divisors) are 1, 2, 4, and 7.
Now, let’s continue this process and find the divisors by checking the next integers. Here are more calculations:
- 308 / 11 = 28 (whole number)
- 308 / 12 = 25.67 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 13 = 23.69 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 14 = 22 (whole number)
- 308 / 15 = 20.53 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 16 = 19.25 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 17 = 18.12 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 18 = 17.11 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 19 = 16.21 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 20 = 15.4 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 22 = 14 (whole number)
- 308 / 23 = 13.39 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 24 = 12.83 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 25 = 12.32 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 26 = 11.85 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 27 = 11.41 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 28 = 11 (whole number)
- 308 / 29 = 10.62 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 30 = 10.27 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 31 = 9.94 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 32 = 9.625 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 33 = 9.33 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 34 = 9 (whole number)
- 308 / 35 = 8.8 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 36 = 8.56 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 37 = 8.31 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 38 = 8.1 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 39 = 7.88 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 40 = 7.7 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 41 = 7.51 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 42 = 7.33 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 43 = 7.16 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 44 = 7 (whole number)
- 308 / 45 = 6.84 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 46 = 6.7 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 47 = 6.54 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 48 = 6.42 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 49 = 6.28 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 50 = 6.16 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 51 = 6.04 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 52 = 5.92 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 53 = 5.79 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 54 = 5.7 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 55 = 5.58 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 56 = 5.5 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 57 = 5.4 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 58 = 5.31 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 59 = 5.22 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 60 = 5.13 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 61 = 5.03 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 62 = 4.97 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 63 = 4.89 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 64 = 4.81 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 65 = 4.74 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 66 = 4.67 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 67 = 4.59 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 68 = 4.53 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 69 = 4.46 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 70 = 4.4 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 71 = 4.34 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 72 = 4.28 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 73 = 4.22 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 74 = 4.16 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 75 = 4.11 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 76 = 4.05 (not a whole number)
- 308 / 77 = 4 (whole number)
By continuing this process, we can gather all the divisors of 308. After checking all integers from 1 to 308, we found the following divisors:
The divisors of 308 are:
- 1
- 2
- 4
- 7
- 11
- 14
- 22
- 28
- 44
- 77
- 154
- 308
In conclusion, we learned how to find the divisors of the number 308 by dividing it by integers from 1 up to itself. The divisors are key for understanding the properties of numbers and can be helpful in various areas of math!