What are Prime Factors?

According to the Fundamental Theorem of Arithmetic, every integers which are greater than 1 can be represented uniquely as the product of the prime numbers. These prime numbers which divides the number exactly are the prime factors.
For Example:
10 can be represented as 2 x 5 and 5 x 2. This means that both 2 and 5 can exactly divide the 10. Hence, 2 and 5 are the prime factors of 10.
Any prime numbers which exactly divides the given number are called the prime factors. Using these prime factorsoriginal given number can be recovered.
We use this kind of prime factorization to find the GCD and LCM of numbers. Prime factors are useful in cryptography and number theory .