 A 24-by-60 rectangular area can be divided into a grid of 12-by-12 squares, with two squares along one edge (24/12 = 2) and five squares along the other (60/12 = 5).The greatest common divisor is useful for reducing fractions to be in lowest terms.For example, gcd(42, 56) = 14, therefore,

The greatest common divisor can be used to find the least common multiple of two numbers when the greatest common divisor is known, using the relation,

Greatest common divisors can in principle be computed by determining the prime factorizations of the two numbers and comparing factors, as in the following example