Greatest common divisor

The greatest common divisor of two numbers, $$x$$ and $$y$$ is the biggest integer that divides both $$x$$ and $$y$$.

This comes in handy when calculating the least common multiple, since $$lcm(a,b) = \frac{ a b }{ \gcd(a,b) }$$.

The gcd can be found by using the Euclidean algorithm.

Some properties of the gcd

 * Any number that divides both $$a$$ and $$b$$ divides $$\gcd(a,b)$$.
 * $$\gcd(a,b)$$ is expressible as $$ax+by$$ for some integers $$x$$ and $$y$$.
 * More generally, the equation $$ax+by=c$$ has integer solutions for $$x$$ and $$y$$ if and only if $$\gcd(a,b)\mid c$$. If it has one solution $$(x_0,y_0)$$, it has infinitely many solutions, all given by $$(x_0+\frac{b}{gcd(a,b)}t,y_0-\frac{a}{gcd(a,b)}t)$$ as $$t$$ takes on all integer values.