The prime factorization of 96 is 25 × 3.
To arrive at this result, we start by dividing 96 by the smallest prime number, which is 2. We continue dividing by 2 until we can no longer do so:
- 96 ÷ 2 = 48
- 48 ÷ 2 = 24
- 24 ÷ 2 = 12
- 12 ÷ 2 = 6
- 6 ÷ 2 = 3
- 3 ÷ 3 = 1
We can see that we divided by 2 a total of 5 times, and then 3 once. Thus, we conclude that the prime factorization of 96 is made up of the prime number 2 raised to the power of 5, and the prime number 3 raised to the power of 1.