Prime Pictures

What’s in the picture?

Start by reading what is below, looking at the pictures and thinking about the
answers to the questions!

Each of these pictures represents a number and the same logic is used to create
them all!

 What numbers do they represent?

 What patterns exist with the numbers of circles?
 How could you make more of these pictures?
 What would certain types of numbers look like?

© Jim Noble, InThinking

www.teachmathematics.net 1
A picture for every number?

Here is a list of questions and tasks to help pursue this idea, they are in no particular
order! Make sure you include examples to demonstrate your work. Following work on
any of the below tasks, every student should produce a ‘picture of a number’ based
on the prime number decomposition.

 What numbers will make prettier pictures?

 What will pictures of square numbers look like? Can you make a square
number with more than one colour?
 What will pictures of Cube numbers look like? Can you make a cube number
with more than one colour?
 What will pictures of prime numbers look like?
 How many ways are there of making any given number as a picture?

Now prepare a gallery of your own ‘Prime Pictures’ You might choose to do…

A number that can be shown in 2 or 3 different ways (so three pictures)

A square or cube number
A really big number!
All of the above

© Jim Noble, InThinking

www.teachmathematics.net 2