Solution: The GCF of 143 and 72 is 1
Methods
How to find the GCF of 143 and 72 using Prime Factorization
One way to find the GCF of 143 and 72 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 143?
What are the Factors of 72?
Here is the prime factorization of 143:
1
1
1
×
1
3
1
11^1 × 13^1
1 1 1 × 1 3 1
And this is the prime factorization of 72:
2
3
×
3
2
2^3 × 3^2
2 3 × 3 2
When you compare the prime factorization of these two numbers, you can see that there are no matching prime factors. When this is the case, it means that there are no common factors between these two numbers. As a result, the GCF of 143 and 72 is 1.
Thus, the GCF of 143 and 72 is: 1
How to Find the GCF of 143 and 72 by Listing All Common Factors
The first step to this method of finding the Greatest Common Factor of 143 and 72 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, 143 and 72:
Factors of 143: 1, 11, 13, 143
Factors of 72: 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 12, 18, 24, 36, 72
When you compare the two lists of factors, you can see that the only common factor is 1. So, in this case, the GCF of 143 and 72 is 1.
Find the GCF of Other Number Pairs
Want more practice? Try some of these other GCF problems:
What is the GCF of 21 and 50?
What is the GCF of 114 and 138?
What is the GCF of 72 and 46?
What is the GCF of 100 and 98?
What is the GCF of 112 and 75?