<p>i'm not very good at absolute value</p>
<p>i get it that the sign of the number is not counted, and that its always positive.</p>
<p>but i get mixed up when it comes in an equation. like |x-4|= 8</p>
<p>what do we do to solve that? :S :S</p>
<p>please help! thanks!</p>
<p>you do it this way: </p>
<p>first step: generally that’s what you always do as the 1st step when you see | |:
-8 < x-4 < 8,</p>
<p>so from the left side, - 8 < x - 4, you get x>-4
from the right side, x - 4 < 8 you get: x < 12.</p>
<p>^^ It’s ‘=’ not ‘<’. :P</p>
<p>Anyway, you can just convert an absolute value into two equations, one for negative, one for positive.</p>
<p>So, x - 4 = -8 or x - 4 = 8. </p>
<p>Then solve normally.</p>
<p>Nikki, or instead of x -4 = -8 as to find the other answer, you could do -x + 4 = 8.</p>
<p>Goes to the OP too.</p>
<p>musiclover39, it might help you to think about the absolute value problems like this:
If you have | x - 4 | = 8, to solve this, you should ask yourself, what number is 8 units away from 4? or with |x - a | = b, what number is b units away from a?
Then realize that it could be 8 units away to the right or to the left.
So you have either 12 or -4.
This approach works nicely with inequalities involving absolute values, also.</p>
<p>In a different category, if you have a question like |3x - 4 | = 8, solve it in stages. First, what values for 3x are 8 units away from 4. The possibilities for 3x are 12 and -4. So the possibilities for x are 4 and -4/3</p>