Question

Find the greates common factor of the following monomials:2r^4s^2 and 36r^4s^3

Answer 1

The greatest common factor is 2$r^{4} s^{2}$

This is because we start by taking the largest factor that goes into both coefficients. Since the first coefficient is 2, we have to try 2 and 1. Since 2 is larger and goes into 36 evenly, we use that.

Then we use the smallest number of each variable. There are 4 r's in both equations. So, that is the number that we take. There are 2 s's in the first term, so we take that number.