Question

Find the highest common factor of $36$ and $84$.

Answer 1

Find the HCF of the given numbers

The highest common factor of two numbers is the largest number which is a factor for both of the numbers.

Prime factorize $36$ and $84$ as follows:

$\begin{array}{rcl}36& =& 3\times 3\times 2\times 2\end{array}$

$\begin{array}{rcl}84& =& 7\times 3\times 2\times 2\end{array}$

Therefore, the highest common factor is $3\times 2\times 2$, that is, $12$

Hence, the highest common factor of $36$ and $84$ is $12$.