you do this by doing a factor tree so for 240 you could split it into 4 and 60. you would then split 4 into 2 and 2 then 60 into 2 and 30. since 2 is a prime number you leave those 'branches'. you would then split 30 into 2 and 15 and finally 15 into 3 and 5. now you have all of the prime factors of 240: 2×2×2×2×3×5. you can check this by multiplying them together and it should make 240. it can also be written as 2^4×3×5 because 2×2×2×2 is the same as 2^4. you then do the same thing with 1500, so split it into 100 and 15, then split 100 into 2 and 50 and split 15 into 3 and 5. then split 50 into 2 and 25 then split 25 into 5 and 5. that makes 2×2×3×5×5×5 or 2^2×3×5^3
