How do you find the greatest common factor of 12 and 60?

1 Answer
Oct 9, 2017

The greatest common factor of 12 and 60 is 12.

Explanation:

What is the greatest common factor (GCF)?
That is the largest number that will divide into all those given.
To find it, the smallest prime numbers should be divided into each one. Prime numbers are: 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19.

Notice that 1 is not a prime number, and it has been left out of the list since division by 1 is usually frivolous. But, in this case we can see that 12 itself is a factor of 60.

So, if we divide 12 by 1, and 60 by 5, we get 12 for both.

Then, 12 is the GCF for 12 and 60.