Solution: The GCF of 117 and 141 is 3
Methods
How to find the GCF of 117 and 141 using Prime Factorization
One way to find the GCF of 117 and 141 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 117?
What are the Factors of 141?
Here is the prime factorization of 117:
3
2
×
1
3
1
3^2 × 13^1
3 2 × 1 3 1
And this is the prime factorization of 141:
3
1
×
4
7
1
3^1 × 47^1
3 1 × 4 7 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 117 and 141 by multiplying all the matching prime factors to get a GCF of 117 and 141 as 9:
Thus, the GCF of 117 and 141 is: 9
How to Find the GCF of 117 and 141 by Listing All Common Factors
The first step to this method of finding the Greatest Common Factor of 117 and 141 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, 117 and 141:
Factors of 117: 1, 3, 9, 13, 39, 117
Factors of 141: 1, 3, 47, 141
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 117 and 141 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 112 and 86?
What is the GCF of 89 and 73?
What is the GCF of 62 and 107?
What is the GCF of 138 and 129?
What is the GCF of 123 and 83?