What is absolute deviation

Question

I have a word problem that states:

a safety regulation states that the height of a guardrail must be 42 inches with an absolute deviation of 3 inches. Find the minimum and maximum heights of a guardrail.

 

please help me solve!!!!

Answer 1

That simply means that the actual height must be within 3 inches of the 42 inch regulation height. By both adding and subtracting 3 from 42 we obtain a minimum height of 39 inches and a maximum height of 45 inches. All of these guardrails will be within 3 inches of the 42 inch requirement.