Number reference
56 explained.
56: fifty-six, composite; factors, prime factorization, roots, binary, hexadecimal, and digit properties.
Identity and representations
- Written form
- fifty-six
- Classification
- composite
- Factors
- 1, 2, 4, 7, 8, 14, 28, 56
- Prime factorization
- 2 × 2 × 2 × 7
- Square root
- 7.483315
- Cube root
- 3.825862
- Binary
- 111000
- Octal
- 70
- Hexadecimal
- 38
- Roman numeral
- LVI
- Digit sum
- 11
- Digital root
- 2
What makes 56 notable
- Factor structure. 56 breaks down into 2 distinct primes (2, 7) and has 8 divisors in total, so it can be split into equal whole-number groups 6 ways beyond 1 and itself.
56 in everyday use
Fifty-six delegates signed the Declaration of Independence. It is the atomic number of barium, the element in the contrast drink swallowed before certain X-rays. Joe DiMaggio hit safely in 56 consecutive games in 1941, a record still standing. Stonehenge has 56 Aubrey holes around its perimeter, and a hundredweight in Britain was 112 pounds, so a half-hundredweight sack weighed 56.
Fifty-six is 7 × 8 and a tetrahedral number, 1 + 3 + 6 + 10 + 15 + 21, the balls in a six-layer triangular pyramid. It has eight divisors and is abundant, with proper divisors summing to 64. It is also the number of ways to choose three items from eight, which is why 56 appears in the eighth row of Pascal's triangle.
Nearby numbers
How to read this page
The factor list shows every way 56 splits into equal whole-number groups — 8 divisors in total. The prime factorisation is the compact form of that same information, and the base conversions restate 56 for contexts that do not use decimal.
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