The full form HCF stands for "
Highest Common Factor" Therefore, the greatest common factor (GCF), GCD's full name (Greatest Common Divisor) is another name for HCF. The greatest common factor (GCF, GCD, or HCF) for a subset of whole numbers is the largest positive number that divides all the given numbers evenly and leaves no remainder. There are several ways to calculate the HCF of two numbers.
The prime factorization technique is used to calculate the HCF of two or more numbers. A formula can't tell you for sure what the largest common factor of two given numbers is. To discover the greatest common factor of two or more integers, we may nevertheless formulate a statement using prime factorization.
How to Find HCF
Finding the provided numbers' highest common factor can be done in a variety of ways. No matter how you do it, the HCF of the numbers will always give you the same answer. The high common factor of a number can be found through various methods. Following are the listed three methods:
By division method
By prime factorization method
By listing factors
Division Method
Method of HCF by Division method Divide the greatest by the smallest of the provided integers in this way until the remainder is zero. The final divisor will be the HCF of the given numbers. The division technique may be used to get the HCF of two numbers. Let's break this down using the steps below and the example provided below.
- This approach involves dividing the bigger number by the smaller one and then checking the difference.
- The remainder from the previous step is then used as a new divisor with new divides as the previous divisor. The step proceeds with another manual division method.
- The process keeps repeating in a loop until the remainder reaches zero.
Prime factorization method
The prime factorization is another method used to determine HCF. To get the product of the least power of each common prime factor, we must represent the provided integers as their product of prime factors. Let's use the following steps to better understand this process:
- Find the integers that have the same prime factors.
- The HCF of those numbers may then be calculated by multiplying these usual prime factors.
Listing factors Methods
The listing approach includes writing down all the factors that impact the given numbers. for example, Find the HCF of 20 and 35, for instance. 1, 2, 4, 5, 10, and 20 are all potential factors of 20.
HCF of Multiple Number
We may use either the "listing factors method" or the "prime factorization technique" to determine the HCF of several numbers. There is little difference when dealing with several integers when utilizing the division approach, though. Let's see using the division technique to determine the HCF of three integers.
We follow the steps below to determine the HCF of three digits. To better grasp this, let's utilise the steps and example below.
- First, determine the HCFs of the largest and smallest numbers provided.
- After determining the HCF of the first two numbers in Step 1, find the HCF of the third number.
- This displays the three digits of HCF.
The first thing we'll do is calculate the HCF of the two numbers, 126 and 180. HCF = 18 for 126 and 180. The HCF of the third number, 162, and the HCF of the two numbers were obtained.
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