In mathematics, a prime number is a natural number greater than 1 that has no positive integer divisors other than 1 and itself. Prime numbers are often considered the "building blocks" of natural numbers because every natural number can be written as a product of prime numbers in a unique way (except for 1, which is not considered a prime number).
For instance, the initial few prime numbers are 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, and 19. These are prime numbers because you cannot divide them equally by any other positive integer except for 1 and themselves.
A composite number, on the other hand, is a natural number greater than one that has at a minimum one positive integer divisor other than itself and the number 1. The opposite of prime numbers, composite numbers can be defined as the total of two or more prime numbers.
For instance, the composite numbers 4, 6, 8, 9, 10, and 12 are all present. Due to the fact that they can be divided equally by other positive integers, these numbers are composite. For instance, the number 4 can be divided evenly by two, the number 6 can be divided equally by two and three, and the number eight can be divided evenly by two and four.
In addition to having many applications in fields such as computer science and cryptography, prime, and composite numbers are important in mathematics. Besides that, they are a topic of study in number theory, an area of mathematics that examines the properties of integers.
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