by tommywallach Tue Apr 23, 2013 1:00 am
Hey Sowjan,
There's no need to make equations here. Just be logical. The distance between q and -1 is 5. This means that q is five units away from -1.
Thus we know that q is either -6 or 4. I'm not sure why we would need an equation at all. In fact, I encourage you to get away from algebra if you're forcing it this hard. However, the algebra would simply be this:
5 = abs (q - (-1))
That's because distance is always a function of difference (subtraction). Now, we solve for the two equations. There is the straight ahead one, where we simply remove the absolute value signs:
5 = q + 1
q = 4
And the other solution, where we just multiply a side by -1 (this is how you solve for the other solution of absolute values):
-5 = q + 1
q = -6
Voila!
-t