One student says -5 is bigger than -4 and uses money as the analogy: “If I owe $5, I have a bigger debt than if I owe $4.” What

Question

Fiesta28 [93]

3 years ago

7

One student says -5 is bigger than -4 and uses money as the analogy: “If I owe $5, I have a bigger debt than if I owe $4.” What

is wrong with this argument?

Mathematics

2 answers:

Allisa [31] · Answer 1 · 2022-08-24T21:01:56+03:00

Allisa [31]3 years ago

7 0

Answer:

This is a bad argument because when talking about negative numbers, the closer the numbers are to 0, the bigger they are. -4 is closer to 0 than -5, so -4 is the bigger number.

Step-by-step explanation:

Semenov [28] · Answer 2 · 2022-08-24T23:11:25+03:00

Answer:

-5 is not larger than -4.

Step-by-step explanation:

Think of a number line. The absolute value of -5 is 5, meaning -5 is 5 away from 0 to the left. On the other hand, -4's absolute value is 4, meaning -4 is 4 away from 0 to the left. In the money scenario, owing $5 is a bigger debt because the absolute value is larger, not the number itself. Hope this helps!!