SOLUTION: What is the greatest common factor? How do you know when you have found the greatest one?

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Question 750790: What is the greatest common factor? How do you know when you have found the greatest one?
Answer by timvanswearingen(106) About Me  (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!
You find all the prime factors for each number. These are called factor trees, hopefully you know how to do one. Then, whichever they have in common, you multiply them together to get the GCF. For example, let's use 24 and 60.
24=4%2A6
24=%282%2A2%29%2A%282%2A3%29
24=2%2A2%2A2%2A3
Now, let's do 60:
60=12%2A5
60=%284%2A3%29%2A5
60=2%2A2%2A3%2A5
We have found the prime factorizations of both numbers. They each have 2 factors of 2 and they each have 1 factor of 3.
So the GCF is: 2*2*3=12. 12 is the GCF