Three sets of English, Mathematics and Science books containing 336, 240 and 96 books respectively have to be stacked in such a way that all the books are stored subject wise and the height of each stack is the same. How many stacks will be there?

Answer:

Total number of English books = 336

Total number of mathematics books = 240

Total number of science books = 96

∴ Number of books stored in each stack = HCF (336, 240, 96)

Using prime factorization:

336 = 2⁴ × 3 × 7

240 = 2⁴ × 3 × 5

96 = 2⁵ × 3

HCF = 24 × 3

∴ HCF = 48

So, we made stacks of 48 books each.

∴ Number of stacks