Duckfan said:
I just want you to know that I honestly took a lot of time trying to find the factor that goes into both 186, 300. I really did sat here and pulled my hair out wondering what I was missing. As I said, I honestly did not see 2 x 3. I'm trying to figure this on my own since the exam monitors would likely not be happy if I brought someone into help with question. I appreciate the breakdown. I really do. (Whew) Moving away from fractions now and getting into "real number" issues/problems.
And BTW, if you have Skype, I have it too.
Yes, I can tell you are making a genuine effort to learn these concepts. And as Prove It mentioned above, you can also list the factors of both numbers and take the largest factor common to both as the GCD. For example:
300: 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 10, 15, 20, 30, 50, 60, 100, 150, 300
186: 1, 2, 3, 6, 31, 62, 93, 186
And we see the largest factor (or divisor) common to both numbers is 6. Obviously, I prefer the rime factorization method since I have been pushing it. There is also the
Euclidean algorithm:
$$300=1\times186+114$$
$$186=1\times114+72$$
$$114=1\times72+42$$
$$72=1\times42+30$$
$$42=1\times30+12$$
$$30=2\times12+6$$
$$12=2\times6+0$$
Since the last remainder is zero, the algorithm ends with 6 as the greatest common divisor of 300 and 186. This agrees with the GCD found by prime factorization. (Yes)