What happens to the sign of a quotient when you divide two negative integers?
Conjecture: The quotient of two negative integers equals a positive integer.
Practice makes perfect
Let's attempt to find a pattern by calculating some quotients of two negative integers.
- 4/- 2&=2 &&- 13/- 2=6.5 [0.8em]
- 8/- 5&=1.6 &&- 30/- 6=5Examining the quotients, we see that all of them are positive. With this information we can make a conjecture.
Conjecture: & The quotient of two
&negative integers equals
&a positive integer
Let's test this a few times with some other numbers.
- 8/- 6&=1.33 &&- 15/- 3=5 [0.8em]
- 3/- 2&=1.5 && - 9/- 4=2.25
It would appear that our conjecture is true.
