In the exercise, the answer is negative but a length can never be negative. How can we correct this?
Error: The absolute value should have been taken. Correct Solution: AB=3.5
Practice makes perfect
When measuring the length of a segment, we use the Ruler Postulate. It tells us that we should take the difference between the end points, which are A and B in this case.
1-4.5=-3.5
Since the length of a segment cannot be negative, we need to take the absolute value of this difference.
|-3.5|=3.5
This is the error in the exercise, they forgot to take the absolute value. The correct way to calculate the length of the segment is:
AB=|1-4.5|=3.5.
