Think of the number line as a one block street with the zero a person who lives in the middle of the block. Call him Zero. Then think of negative numbers as being addresses of neighbors equally spaced to the left of this person and positive numbers being addresses of neighbors equally spaced to the right. If Zero goes out of his house and walks three houses to the left and goes in to visit, it would be the same distance as if he walked three houses to the right and went in to visit that neighbor. So when the distance traveled from zero is the same then the positive and negative numbers cancel out. But if Zero walks four houses in the left direction that would be a longer distance than if he walked just one house to the right....
It depends. For example: -4 + 2 = -2 (So then the answer would be negative because the positive number was not high enough to get the negative number to 0.)
Or -4 + 7 = 3 (This answer would be positive since the positive number was enough to bring the negative number past 0.)
This would be true if and only if their absolute values are equal. A negative decimal number is any number with a negative sign in front of it. The only way it can be summed (added) to a positive number and equal zero is if the positive number is identical
to the negative number but just missing the minus sign. Every other example would NOT equal zero.
David F.
This would be true if and only if their absolute values are equal. A negative decimal number is any number with a negative sign in front of it. The only way it can be summed (added) to a positive number and equal zero is if the positive number is identical to the negative number but just missing the minus sign. Every other example would NOT equal zero.08/30/12