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Question 326348: What is the importance of knowing absolute values? Thanks to those man who can answer this!
Answer by J2R2R(94)   (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website! What is the importance of knowing absolute values? Thanks to those man who can answer this!
The importance of absolute values is it is the size or magnitude of the value. The sign (+ or -) bears no significance to the magnitude but is to do with the direction, so where direction doesn’t matter you are more concerned with the magnitude.
Let us take income and spending. Income is positive because it adds to your account whereas spending is negative as it takes away from your account.
You were given $500 and spent $200 followed by $125 and $85. You know the income and spending amounts, so the size is all that matters at this stage. However to calculate the balance the signs will come in. $(500-200-125-85) = $90. So you were given $500 and spent $410.
You don’t think of the $410 being -$410 when talking about spending. NB If you said you had spent -$410 that is the equivalent of being given $410 since minus times minus is plus which is a gain and not a loss. A negative spend is a gain.
There are more significant uses for absolute values when using maths at higher levels. A scalar has magnitude but no direction whereas a vector has both magnitude and directions.
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