Don’t you just love inequalities? Of course I can only hear you saying “not really…inequalities stink!” Well I know you may not like inequalities but you need to know how to work with them. All right let me stress some points:
* the solution to an inequality is more than a single number; inequalities have solution sets (many/infinite number of solutions). As an example lets consider the inequality x > 5 what can the value of x be? i.e. what numbers are greater than 5? clearly an infinite amount of numbers are greater than 5 so we need to express the solutions to inequalities in a different way other than writing out all the numbers greater than 5 – that would take a lot of paper and with global warming….you get the idea. So to deal with this little issue we graph the solution of an inequality on a number line.
other important points:
* we simplify inequalities using the same steps as solving equations
* when dividing/multiplying both sides of an inequality by a negative number you need to reverse the inequality symbol; example > would turn into < .
* when graphing your solution <, > symbols use open circles; <=, >= symbols fill in the circle.
* make sure you can solve linear equations before taking on inequalities- good luck and may the force be with you!!
