The absolute value of a number is its distance from 0 on the number line. Since distance is always greater than or equal to 0, the absolute value of any number is greater than or equal to 0.
|5| = |- 5|
Practice makes perfect
We want to complete the given statement. To do so, we will evaluate the absolute values on both sides.
|5| |- 5|
The absolute value of a number is the distance between this number and 0 on the number line. Since distance is always greater than or equal to 0, the absolute value of any number is greater than or equal to 0. The absolute value of a non-negative number is equal to the number, while the absolute value of a negative number is equal to its opposite.
With this in mind, let's simplify both sides!
ccc
|5|= 5
|- 5|= 5
We found that both absolute values simplify to 5! This means that they are actually equal!
|5| = |- 5|
This is beacuse the distance from 5 to 0 is the same as the distance from - 5 to 0.
