Types Of Number

Numbers come in families. Some are whole, some are negative, some can only be built by multiplying a number by itself, and a special few line up to make neat triangles of dots. Knowing which family a number belongs to is the quiet skill behind factorising, simplifying surds, working with fractions and spotting patterns in a sequence.

In this lesson you will sort numbers into natural numbers, integers, primes, squares, cubes and triangle numbers, then put them to work through factors and multiples, the highest common factor and lowest common multiple. You will also meet rational and irrational numbers and learn what a reciprocal is. These are the building blocks the rest of the number work rests on.