A bookseller has 56 English books and 72 Gujarati books. He wants to stack them in such a way that all the books are stored topic-wise and the height of each stack is the same and also the stacks occupy the least surface area of the bottom. What is the maximum number of books that can be placed in each stack for this purpose?
GCF(56,72) = 8
so eight stacks of each will cover the same surface area
and there will be 7 English books and 9 Gujarati books in each stack.
So, as long as the Gujarati books are 7/9 as thick as the English books, the stacks will also be the same height.
Or, I guess you could make 7 stacks of English books and 9 stacks of Gujarati books, each stack being 8 books high.