[Math] How many distinct ways can the number be written as product of $3$ factors

combinatoricspermutations

How many distinct ways can the number $126$ be written as a product of $3$ positive integer factors?
I found that the prime factors are $126=2\times3\times3\times7$. But how to get number of different ways out of this?

Best Answer

We're trying to count factorizations $126=abc$ with $a\le b\le c$. Note that, except for $1\cdot1\cdot126$ and $3\cdot3\cdot14$, the rest have $a\lt b\lt c$, since $3$ is the only repeated prime factor of $126$. Let $m$ denote the number with $a\lt b\lt c$, so the number we want to find is $m+2$.

If we remove the condition $a\le b\le c$, the number of factorizations $126=abc$ is $6m+3\cdot2=6m+6$. But it's also $3\cdot6\cdot3=54$, since the $2$ and $7$ can be assigned to any of the three factors and the pair of $3$'s can be assigned in $6$ different ways. Setting $6m+6=54$, we find $m=8$, so the answer we're after is $8+2=10$.