Subjects arithmetic

Lcm Books 3B0399

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Question: John is organizing a book club meeting. He wants to distribute a set of books to the members. Each set should have an equal number of books, with no books left over. The books can be arranged in sets of $6$ or $8$. What is the minimum number of books John needs to have?
1. **State the problem:** John wants to find the minimum number of books such that the books can be divided evenly into sets of $6$ or $8$ with no remainder. 2. **Formula and concept:** This is a problem of finding the Least Common Multiple (LCM) of $6$ and $8$. The LCM of two numbers is the smallest positive integer divisible by both numbers. 3. **Find the prime factorizations:** - $6 = 2 \times 3$ - $8 = 2^3$ 4. **Determine the LCM:** - Take the highest powers of all prime factors: - For $2$, the highest power is $2^3$ - For $3$, the highest power is $3$ So, $$\text{LCM}(6,8) = 2^3 \times 3 = 8 \times 3 = 24$$ 5. **Interpretation:** The minimum number of books John needs is $24$ so that they can be divided into sets of $6$ or $8$ without any leftover. **Final answer:** $24$