What is the Lcm of 5 25 30?

Answer 1

There are many ways to find the LCM, or least common multiple. One way I like is to factor the number into primes first. So 5 is prime already and 25 is 5^2, and 30 is 5x3x2. Now take the largest value of each prime occurring in any of the prime factorization. So, for example, if we have 5, 5^2 and 5^3, in the three prime factorizations, we take the 5^3. If we do not see the prime at all, that is the same as p^0 which is 1. So In the example you asked about, we have 5^2x2x3=150. We can find the gcd in a similar manner by taking looking at the smallest exponent instead of the largest! Dr. Chuck