[Math] Rational Numbers – LCM and HCF

elementary-number-theory

I was reading a text book and came across the following approach to find the LCM and HCF of rational numbers/fractions:

  • LCM of fractions = LCM of numerators/HCF of denominators
  • HCF of fractions = HCF of numerators/LCM of denominators

Can someone please help me understand why the above formula holds true or how the above is logically deduced?

Thanks in advance!

Best Answer

Notation: $\text{HCF}$ is denoted below as $\text{gcd}$.

Assume you have two fractions $\frac{a}{b},\frac{c}{d}$ reduced to lowest terms. Let

$$\begin{eqnarray*} a &=&\underset{i}{\prod } p_{i}^{e_{i}(a)},\qquad b=\underset{i}{\prod } p_{i}^{e_{i}(b)}, \\ c &=&\underset{i}{\prod } p_{i}^{e_{i}(c)},\qquad d=\underset{i}{\prod } p_{i}^{e_{i}(d)}. \end{eqnarray*}$$

be the prime factorizations of the integers $a,b,c$ and $d$. Then

$$\frac{\underset{i}{\prod }\ p_{i}^{\max \left( e_{i}(a),e_{i}(c)\right) }}{% \prod_{i}\ p_{i}^{\min \left( e_{i}(b),e_{i}(d)\right) }}$$

is a fraction which is a common multiple of $\frac{a}{b},\frac{c}{d}$. It is the least one because by the properties of the $\text{lcm}$ and $\gcd $ of two integers, $\prod_{i}\ p_{i}^{\max \left( e_{i}(a),e_{i}(c)\right) }$ is the least common multiple of the numerators and $\prod_{i}\ p_{i}^{\min \left( e_{i}(b),e_{i}(d)\right) }$ is the greatest common divisor of the denominators. Hence

$$\begin{eqnarray*} \text{lcm}\left( \frac{a}{b},\frac{c}{d}\right) &=&\text{lcm}\left( \frac{{\prod_{i}\ p_{i}^{e_{i}(a)}}}{\prod_{i}\ p_{i}^{e_{i}(b)}},\frac{% \prod_{i}\ p_{i}^{e_{i}(c)}}{\prod_{i}\ p_{i}^{e_{i}(d)}}\right)=\frac{\prod_{i}\ p_{i}^{\max \left( e_{i}(a),e_{i}(c)\right) }}{% \prod_{i}\ p_{i}^{\min \left( e_{i}(b),e_{i}(d)\right) }}=\frac{\text{lcm}(a,c)}{\gcd (b,d)}.\quad(1) \end{eqnarray*}$$

Similarly

$$\begin{eqnarray*} \gcd \left( \frac{a}{b},\frac{c}{d}\right) =\gcd \left( \frac{{\prod_{i}\ p_{i}^{e_{i}(a)}}}{\prod_{i}p_{i}^{e_{i}(b)}},\frac{% \prod_{i\ }p_{i}^{e_{i}(c)}}{\prod_{i}p_{i}^{e_{i}(d)}}\right) =\frac{\prod_{i}\ p_{i}^{\min \left( e_{i}(a),e_{i}(c)\right) }}{% \prod_{i}\ p_{i}^{\max \left( e_{i}(b),e_{i}(d)\right) }} =\frac{\gcd (a,c)}{\text{lcm}(b,d)}.\quad(2) \end{eqnarray*}$$

The repeated application of these relations generalizes the result to any finite number of fractions.