|2-9| What is absoulte value?

[glod...@provide.net]

What is absoulte the value of |2-9| ? Is it 7 or 11? please E-mail
thanks

[Scott Kenji Araki]

|2-9|=|-7|=7

[Virgil Hancher]

In article <Pine.OSF.3.95.981004...@cheetah.it.wsu.edu>,

Absolute value symbols also act like parentheses. Do any possible
operations inside first, then take the absolute value.

In |2-9|, the subtraction operation is inside so must be done first,
before taking the absolute value, so the sequence of steps is
|2-9| = |-7| = 7

If you have something like |2| + |-9|, then you would end with 11.
If you have something like |2| - |9|, then you end with -7

--

vmh...@friix.comx | Un-x to reply

[Stan Brown]

[posted and emailed]

glod...@provide.net (glod...@provide.net) wrote:
>What is absoulte the value of |2-9| ? Is it 7 or 11? please E-mail

What is 2-9? It is -7, right? What is the absolute value of -7?

I don't know exactly which part of the problem threw you, but remember
that the absolute value signs || are grouping symbols just like
parentheses. In evaluating an expression involving |...|, you have to do
everything inside the absolute value sign before you evaluate the
absolute value.

I'm emailing a copy of this response as you asked, but for the future
please reflect that if you expect people in this newsgroup to answer your
questions you might be willing to put out the minimal effort of reading
their answers in the same forum -- plus you're likely to learn more that
way.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cleveland, Ohio, USA
http://www.concentric.net/%7eBrownsta/
My reply address is correct as is. The courtesy of providing a correct
reply address is more important to me than time spent deleting spam.

[DAVE]

On Sun, 04 Oct 1998 19:01:15 -0400, glod...@provide.net wrote:

>What is absoulte the value of |2-9| ? Is it 7 or 11? please E-mail

>thanks

The absolute value of 2 minus 9 is positive seven (+7). A good way to
understand this is to look at the graph of an absolute value equation.
If you are familiar with the Cartesian Coordinate System (an X, Y
graph)...an absolute value equation would be plotted where there are
no X values where Y is negative. X can be negative all it wants to
but you will never have a negative Y value (hummm I sound as redundant
as a math instructor!).

Dave

[Len]

A Math instructor would point out that 2-9 is equal to 2+ (-9) which is
equal to -7. Therefore the absolute value is equal to 7.

[Virgil Hancher]

A math instructor would also point out that the absolute value
symbols, ||, act like grouping symbols too, so the 2-9 must be done before
taking the absolute value:

|2-9| = |-7| = 7

--

vmh...@friix.comx | Un-x to reply