Solution: The GCF of 12 and 45 is 3
Methods
How to find the GCF of 12 and 45 using Prime Factorization
One way to find the GCF of 12 and 45 is to compare the prime factorization of each number. To find the prime factorization, you can follow the instructions for each number here:
What are the Factors of 12?
What are the Factors of 45?
Here is the prime factorization of 12:
2
2
×
3
1
2^2 × 3^1
2 2 × 3 1
And this is the prime factorization of 45:
3
2
×
5
1
3^2 × 5^1
3 2 × 5 1
When you compare the prime factorization of these two numbers, you can see that there are matching prime factors. You can now find the Greatest Common Factor of 12 and 45 by multiplying all the matching prime factors to get a GCF of 12 and 45 as 9:
Thus, the GCF of 12 and 45 is: 9
How to Find the GCF of 12 and 45 by Listing All Common Factors
The first step to this method of finding the Greatest Common Factor of 12 and 45 is to find and list all the factors of each number. Again, you can see how this is done by looking at the “Factors of” articles that are linked to above.
Let’s take a look at the factors for each of these numbers, 12 and 45:
Factors of 12: 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 12
Factors of 45: 1, 3, 5, 9, 15, 45
When you compare the two lists of factors, you can see that the common factor(s) are 1, 3. Since 3 is the largest of these common factors, the GCF of 12 and 45 would be 3.
Find the GCF of Other Number Pairs
Want more practice? Try some of these other GCF problems:
What is the GCF of 76 and 4?
What is the GCF of 112 and 149?
What is the GCF of 81 and 36?
What is the GCF of 141 and 144?
What is the GCF of 13 and 66?