Question

Find the HCF and LCM of $32$ and $48$.

Answer 1

Here we express the integers as the product of their irreducible (prime) factors.
$32=2\times 2\times 2\times 2\times 2=2^5$,
$48=2\times 2\times 2\times 2=2^4\times 3$.
Hence $HCF=2^4=16$ and $LCM=2^5\times 3=32\times 3=96$.