Let's start by breaking 80 down into its prime factorization: 80 = 2 × 2 × 2 × 2 × 5. If p^3 is divisible by 80, p^3 must have 2, 2, 2, 2, and 5 in its prime factorization. Since p^3 is actually p × p × p, we can conclude that the prime factorization of p × p × p must include 2, 2, 2, 2, and 5.
Let's assign the prime factors to our p's. Since we have a 5 on our list of prime factors, we can give the 5 to one of our p's:
p: 5
p:
p:
Since we have four 2's on our list, we can give each p a 2:
p: 5 × 2
p: 2
p: 2
But notice that we still have one 2 leftover. This 2 must be assigned to one of the p's:
p: 5 × 2 × 2
p: 2
p: 2
We must keep in mind that each p is equal in value to any other p. Therefore, all the p's must have exactly the same prime factorization (i.e. if one p has 5 as a prime factor, all p's must have 5 as a prime factor). We must add a 5 and a 2 to the 2nd and 3rd p's:
p: 5 × 2 × 2 = 20
p: 5 × 2 × 2 = 20
p: 5 × 2 × 2 = 20
We conclude that p must be at least 20 for p^3 to be divisible by 80. So, let's count how many factors 20, or p, has:
1 × 20
2 × 10
4 × 5
20 has 6 factors. If p must be at least 20, p has at least 6 distinct factors.
The correct answer is C.