In mathematics, the greatest common divisor (gcd), sometimes known as the greatest common factor (gcf) or highest common factor (hcf), of two non-zero integers, is the largest positive integer that divides both numbers without remainder.
This notion can be extended to polynomials, see Greatest common divisor of two polynomials.
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The greatest common divisor of a and b is written as gcd(a, b), or sometimes simply as (a, b). For example, gcd(12, 18) = 6, gcd(−4, 14) = 2 and gcd(5, 0) = 5. Two numbers are called coprime or relatively prime if their greatest common divisor equals 1. For example, 9 and 28 are relatively prime.
The greatest common divisor is useful for reducing fractions to be in lowest terms. For example, gcd(42, 56)=14, therefore,
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: to compute gcd(18,84), we find the prime factorizations 18 = 2·32 and 84 = 22·3·7 and notice that the "overlap" of the two expressions is 2·3; so gcd(18,84) = 6. In practice, this method is only feasible for very small numbers; computing prime factorizations in general takes far too long.
A much more efficient method is the Euclidean algorithm, which uses the division algorithm in combination with the observation that the gcd of two numbers also divides their difference: divide 84 by 18 to get a quotient of 4 and a remainder of 12. Then divide 18 by 12 to get a quotient of 1 and a remainder of 6. Then divide 12 by 6 to get a remainder of 0, which means that 6 is the gcd.
The series of quotients generated by the Euclidean algorithm compose a continued fraction.
If a and b are not both zero, the greatest common divisor of a and b can be computed by using least common multiple (lcm) of a and b:
Keith Slavin has shown that for odd a≥1:
which is a function that can be evaluated for complex b [1] and Wolfgang Schramm has shown that:
is an entire function in the variable b for all positive integers a where is Ramanujan's sum [2]. Marcelo Polezzi has shown that:
for positive integers a and b. [3] Donald Knuth has proved the following reduction:
for non-negative integers a and b, where a and b are not both zero.[4]
The probability that two randomly chosen (unlimited) integers and
have a given greatest common divisor
is
. This follows from the characterization of
as the integer
such that
and
and
are coprime. The probability of two integers sharing a factor
is
. The probability that two integers are coprime is
. (See coprime for a derivation.)
Using this information, the expected value of the greatest common divisor function can be computed. This is
This last summation is the Harmonic series, which diverges. Hence the expected value of the greatest common divisor of two variables is not well-defined. This is not the case in general, however. For the greatest common divisor of variables, the expected value is well-defined, and by the above argument, it is
where is the Riemann zeta function.
For , this is approximately equal to 1.3684. For
, it is approximately 1.1106.
if all integers x are limited as then the results can be extended to
where is the Hurwitz zeta function.
if different 's are known for different
then the lowest
is taken.
The greatest common divisor can more generally be defined for elements of an arbitrary commutative ring.
If R is a commutative ring, and a and b are in R, then an element d of R is called a common divisor of a and b if it divides both a and b (that is, if there are elements x and y in R such that d·x = a and d·y = b). If d is a common divisor of a and b, and every common divisor of a and b divides d, then d is called a greatest common divisor of a and b.
Note that with this definition, two elements a and b may very well have several greatest common divisors, or none at all. But if R is an integral domain then any two gcd's of a and b must be associate elements. Also, if R is a unique factorization domain, then any two elements have a gcd. If R is a Euclidean domain then a form of the Euclidean algorithm can be used to compute greatest common divisors.
The following is an example of an integral domain with two elements that do not have a gcd:
The elements and
are two "maximal common divisors" (i.e. any common divisor which is a multiple of 2 is associated to 2, the same holds for
), but they are not associated, so there is no greatest common divisor of a and b.
Corresponding to the Bezout property we may, in any commutative ring, consider the collection of elements of the form , where p and q range over the ring. This is the ideal generated by a and b, and is denoted simply
. In a ring all of whose ideals are principal (a principal ideal domain or PID), this ideal will be identical with the set of multiples of some ring element d; then this d is a greatest common divisor of a and b. But the ideal
can be useful even when there is no greatest common divisor of a and b. (Indeed, Ernst Kummer used this ideal as a replacement for a gcd in his treatment of Fermat's Last Theorem, although he envisioned it as the set of multiples of some hypothetical, or ideal, ring element d, whence the ring-theoretic term.)