Answer:
"greatest common factor" (GCF) or "greatest common divisor" (GCD)
Step-by-step explanation:
Apparently, you're looking for the term that has the given definition. It is called the GCF or GCD, the "greatest common factor" or the "greatest common divisor."
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The GCF or GCD can be found a couple of ways. One way is to find the prime factors of the numbers involved, then identify the lowest power of each of the unique prime factors that are common to all numbers. The product of those numbers is the GCF.
<u>Example</u>:
GCF(6, 9)
can be found from the prime factors:
The unique factors are 2 and 3. Only the factor 3 is common to both numbers, and its lowest power is 1. Thus ...
GCF(6, 9) = 3¹ = 3
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Another way to find the GCD is to use Euclid's Algorithm. At each step of the algorithm, the largest number modulo the smallest number is found. If that is not zero, the largest number is replaced by the result, and the process repeated. If the result is zero, the smallest number is the GCD.
GCD(6, 9) = 9 mod 6 = 3 . . . . . (6 mod 3 = 0, so 3 is the GCD)
