The lowest common multiple of 16 and 18?

Answer 1

A common multiple means a multiple of each number.

144 is the least common multiple of 16 and 18.

You can find this many ways.

One way which is quite easy to see is to list the multiples of each and then find the least one.

Of course you don't list all the multiples. In fact, stop when you find the first common one.

Multiples of 16: 16, 32, 64, 80, 96, 112, 128, and 16x9=144

Multiples of 18: 18, 36, 54, 72, 90, 108, 126, 18x8=144

So 144 is the LCM.

You can also see this from the prime factorization.

16=24

18=32 x 2

So we take the 24 from the 16 and the 32 from the 18

Now you multiply those two and you have 16x9=144