Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Euclidean algorithm/archive1: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 06:57, 30 April 2009

Revision as of 07:11, 30 April 2009

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**Perhaps the 10 square example could be improved. It's not important the exact numbers that are being used there. The basic idea is that the gcd of two numbers is the largest length which can be used as a unit for both numbers. So for the two numbers illustrated by the 10 square picture, the gcd fits in one number twice and fits in the other number 5 times. This is illustrated by the 5 x 2 grid. There is no way to tile that rectangle with a bigger square. --[[User:C S|C S]] ([[User talk:C S|talk]]) 01:40, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

**Ok, so I rewrote the passage with the visualization example to say: <blockquote>Imagine a rectangular area a by b. Suppose d divides both a and b with no remainder. So we can divide the sides of the rectangle into some number of segments of length d and furthermore divide the rectangle into a grid consisting of squares of side length d. The greatest common divisor g equals the largest value of d for which this is possible. For illustration, a 24×60 rectangular area can be divided into a grid of: 1×1 squares, 2×2 squares, 3×3 squares, 6×6 squares or 12×12 squares. Thus, 12 is the greatest common divisor of 24 and 60.</blockquote> Is this an improvement? --[[User:C S|C S]] ([[User talk:C S|talk]]) 07:11, 30 April 2009 (UTC)