Question

What is the greatest common factor of 4, 12, and 24?

Answer 1

The GCF is `4`.

Explanation:

The greatest common factor (GCF) is the biggest number that divides evenly into all three numbers.

Sometimes it helps to list the factors of each number.

Factors of `4`: `color(white)(aaa)1, color(red)4`

Factors of `12`: `color(white)(aa)1, 2, 3, color(red)4, 6, 12`

Factors of `24`: `color(white)(aa)1, 2, 3, color(red)4, 6, 8, 12, 24`

The greatest (biggest) factor that is common to (appears in all three lists of factors) of `4, 12 and`24 is `color(red)4`.