Solution: The GCF of 96 and 16 is 16
Methods
How to find the GCF of 96 and 16 using Prime Factorization
One way to find the GCF of 96 and 16 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 96?
What are the Factors of 16?
Here is the prime factorization of 96:
2
5
×
3
1
2^5 × 3^1
2 5 × 3 1
And this is the prime factorization of 16:
2
4
2^4
2 4
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 96 and 16 by multiplying all the matching prime factors to get a GCF of 96 and 16 as 4:
Thus, the GCF of 96 and 16 is: 4
How to Find the GCF of 96 and 16 by Listing All Common Factors
The first step to this method of finding the Greatest Common Factor of 96 and 16 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, 96 and 16:
Factors of 96: 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12, 16, 24, 32, 48, 96
Factors of 16: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16
When you compare the two lists of factors, you can see that the common factor(s) are 1, 2, 4, 8, 16. Since 16 is the largest of these common factors, the GCF of 96 and 16 would be 16.
Find the GCF of Other Number Pairs
Want more practice? Try some of these other GCF problems:
What is the GCF of 29 and 26?
What is the GCF of 137 and 68?
What is the GCF of 63 and 43?
What is the GCF of 39 and 2?
What is the GCF of 100 and 35?