Fatoração no ensino médio

Abstract

Some of the most interesting and appealing problems of High School Mathematics lead the students directly or indirectly to the subject of factorization . It occurs, however, that the techniques of factorization almost invariably reduced to a single algorithm, with no more than one or another super ficial variation. Such algorithm - in time: to systematically test possible divisions of the number in question by prime numbers which are smaller than its square root; although this technique may be easy to be explained, it becomes slow and tiresome for general numbers with more than three digits, and almost useless for much larger values. This study investigated the problem of factorization by the Sieve of Erathóstenes and presented a matrix approach for it. Therewith, to conduct this study it was taken into consideration the students school level and the theories. It is presented an alternative approach, algorithmically simpler and more eficient to the problem of factorization.