The problem is as follows
If $A = 9n$ and $B = 8n$ where $n$ is a positive integer, which one has a greater number of distinct prime factors ?
According to the answer, we cannot tell. However, I am not totally convinced because I don't know exactly how many distinct prime factors there are in the first place.
For $A$, I am not sure if I am supposed to think 3 as one prime factor or $3*3$ as two factors. I want to say that there is only one prime factor that has to do with $9$.
I understand that $n$ can have multiple prime factors, but I don't think that matters because $B$ also has $n$ in it, so I disregarded it (I am suspecting that this is the reason I got it wrong).
For $B$, if $8 = 2*2*2$ considered as having one distinct prime factor, then the number of distinct prime factor would be one, thus I concluded that $A$ and $B$ has the same number of distinct prime factors...
What am I missing here ?
If $n$ has a factor of $2$ but no factor of $3$, then $8n$ has the same number of distinct prime factors as $n$, and $9n$ has one more, namely, $3$. If $n$ has a factor of $3$ but no factor of $2$, the situation is exactly reversed. And if $n$ has both a factor of $2$ and a factor of $3$, or if it has neither $2$ nor $3$ as a prime factor, then $9n$ and $8n$ have the same number of distinct prime factors.
In a little more detail, suppose that $n$ has $k$ distinct prime factors. If $2\mid n$, then $8n$ also has $k$ distinct prime factors, but if $2\nmid n$, then $8n$ has $k+1$ distinct prime factors: it has $2$ as a prime factor in addition to the ones that $n$ already had. Similarly, if $3\mid n$, then $9n$ has $k$ distinct prime factors, but if $3\nmid n$, then $9n$ has $k+1$ distinct prime factors. Thus,