Question

What is the result of subtracting a number greater than -3 and less than -2 from a number greater than 1 and less than 6

Answer 1

Answer:

3 < M - N < 9

Step-by-step explanation:

First, let's write the inequalities for these two numbers.

"a number greater than -3 and less than -2"

 -3 < N < -2

"a number greater than 1 and less than 6"

1 < M < 6

We want to subtract the first one to the second one, so we want to get:

M - N

Because this is a subtraction, the lower bound of the subtraction happens when we have the minimum value of M and the maximum value of N.

Then the minimum value of M - N happens when:

M = 1

N = -2

(notice that M can't be equal to 1, and N can't be equal to -2, we just do this to find the lower bound)

Then the lower bound is:

M - N = 1 - (-2) = 3

We already got:

3 < M - N

For the upper bound, we need to find the difference between the largest value of M, and the lowest value of N

This is:

M = 6

N = -3

M - N = 6 - (-3) = 9

Then:

M - N < 9

If we take both of our results, the possible values of the subtraction are given by:

3 < M - N < 9