If we have two points on a number line, we can use the midpoint between the points and the distance from each point to the midpoint to write an absolute value equation.
|x- midpoint|= distance to midpoint
Notice that the left-hand side of the equation is in the form |x-a|. Keeping that in mind, we can rewrite our equation.
|x+4|=2 ⇔ |x-( - 4)|= 2
Now, we can determine the midpoint as - 4 and the distance from the midpoint as 2.
