Euclid's Algorithm on a Pool Table
- Author:
- dborkovitz
This applet shows a visual illustration of Euclid's Algorithm on a pool table, where after each bounce of the ball, a square is removed from the table. When the remaining table is square, the side of that square is the GCD.
Press next for the ball to travel to the next wall. Move the sliders to change the dimensions of the rectangle (pressing reset or not).
Euclid's Algorithm is a way to find the greatest common divisor of two natural numbers by repeated subtraction (division can also be used to group repeated subtractions together). For example, to use Euclid's Algorithm to find GCD(51,21):
51-21=30
30-21=9
21-9=12
12-9=3
9-3=6
6-3=3 (since 3 is the last non-zero difference, it is the GCD)
3-3=0