Absolutely!

Absolute Value is one of the most fundamental ideas in math. But what is it? How do you calculate it? And why does it affect Math?

Lets start with the first question – what is it?

Absolute Value is the distance away from zero.

This brings us to the ‘How?’ question:

Well, you just see how far it is from 0. If it’s a positive number, subtract 0 from that number. In short, for a positive number ‘x’, the absolute value will be the same ‘x’. For a negative number, however, you would subtract the number from zero. So, the Absolute value for a negative number ‘-x’ would just be ‘x’.

For example, if you want to find the absolute value of -1, you could use what we said about, or, a diagram works pretty well too:

And, now, for the last question:

Math, especially the number line, is practically based on Absolute Value. Why are numbers where they are? Why is zero in the ‘middle’ of the number line? Why do some positive numbers that correspond to negative counterparts have the same distance from zero, but are on opposite sides of the number line? Absolute Value gives the answer to all of those questions and more.