How do you find the GCF of 30w ^ { 4} ,42w ^ { 2}, and 12w?

1 Answer
Jul 21, 2017

6w

Explanation:

Question: "What is the GCF of 30, 42, and 12?
Answer: 6

You may ask, "How did you get the answer?"
1) Let's list out the factors of 30, 42, and 12.

30 - 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 10, 15, 30
42 - 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 14, 21, 42
12 - 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 12

What are the common numbers from the list?
1, 2, 3, 6

What is the greatest number from the list of the common numbers?
6

Now let's separate the variables and find the common factor of the variables.
Variables: w^2, w^4, w
*w can also be thought of as w^1.

Since w is the lowest powered variable and all of the other ones are greater than that. Then it means that the common factor of the variables is w.

Let's combine what we've found out now!
The GCF of the integers is 6 and the common factor of the variables is w. Therefore, the GCF is 6w!