Question 770863
<font face="Times New Roman" size="+2">


Save yourself a lot of heartache and grief.  Forget you ever heard the words "subtract" and "subtraction".   There are only three basic operations in algebra, addition, multiplication, and raising to a power.


You NEVER subtract.  You add a negative number.  <u>Do not</u> think of *[tex \LARGE x\ -\ 5] as "x subtract 5".  It is "x plus a negative 5", thus: *[tex \LARGE x\ +\ (-5)].


Without re-writing every problem, just remember that the sign is bound to the number it preceeds.  With that in mind, he process of applying the distributive property in your example is 4 times x plus 4 times -5, or *[tex \LARGE 4x\ +\ (-20)] which you would then write as *[tex \LARGE 4x\ -\ 20].


John
*[tex \LARGE e^{i\pi}\ +\ 1\ =\ 0]
<font face="Math1" size="+2">Egw to Beta kai to Sigma</font>
My calculator said it, I believe it, that settles it
<div style="text-align:center"><a href="http://outcampaign.org/" target="_blank"><img src="http://cdn.cloudfiles.mosso.com/c116811/scarlet_A.png" border="0" alt="The Out Campaign: Scarlet Letter of Atheism" width="143" height="122" /></a></div>
</font>