Mathematics is all about numbers... right? Numbers are great in mathematics because they let us find numerical answers to our problems. But what if we don't know the numbers?
This is what algebra is for. We can use algebra to write our mathematical statements using symbols to replace the missing numbers so that we can still solve problems without knowing what they are.
Consider the following scenario.
Claris buys 3 boxes of oranges from the supermarket and she already has 4 oranges at home. How many oranges does she have altogether?
Before we can solve this problem we need to know how many oranges are in each box. But what if we aren't told? This is where we can use algebra.
Suppose that there are x oranges in each box, where the symbol x represents the number we need. By doing this, we can say that Claris has 3 sets of x oranges plus the 4 oranges she has at home.
We can write this mathematically as:
\text{Total oranges}=3x+4
The basic concept of algebra is using symbols, called variables or pronumerals, in the place of numerical values that we don't know. We normally uses letters of the alphabet as our variables.
We can use these pictures in the same way that we would use numbers, except they have some special rules for how we write them.
In algebra, adding variables works the same as adding numbers.
Suppose we have one box containing p apples. If we add 3 more apples, how many apples do we have in total?
If we look at this problem in words we have:\text{Number of apples}= \text{one box of } p\, \text{apples plus}\, 3 \text{ more apples}
We can simplify this to:\text{Number of apples}= p\, \text{apples plus}\, 3 \text{ more apples}
Which we can write mathematically as:\text{Number of apples}= p + 3
Since we don't know what number the variable p stands for we can't simplify this expression any further.
Now what if we are adding different variables together?
Again, because we don't know the value of either variable, we can't simplify the expression any further.
But what if we add the same variables together?
Remember that adding the same number multiple times is the same as multiplying it. That is what is happening here, two sets of p apples can be written as:\text{Number of apples}= p + p=2p
The key shows how many oranges are in each sized box.
If Justin has a oranges, which box does he have?
If Laura has b oranges, which box does she have?
If Vincent has the same amount of oranges as Justin and Laura combined, how many oranges does he have altogether?
When we are adding variables:
If the variables are not the same we cannot combine them, e.g. x+y cannot be combined.
If the variables are the same we can combine them, e.g. x+x=2x
Multiplying variables also works the same as multiplying numbers except for one key difference.
Notice how we wrote two sets of p as 2p instead of 2 \times p. When multiplying numbers and variables together we can simplify the result by writing the number in front of the variable to represent the number of sets we have.
This way of writing multiplication only works for algebraic terms. If we try to do this for numbers we will get the wrong answer.
For example: 4 \times 7 = 28, not 47
We saw in the addition section that adding the same variable multiple times is the same as multiplication.
For example: if we have 5 boxes containing p apples each, then the total number of apples will be equal to 5 sets of p.
We can write this mathematically as:\text{Number of apples}= 5 \times p=5p
Xanthe is selling some oranges in boxes and some oranges individually.
How many oranges does each symbol represent?
Using the values from part (a), how many oranges does the image represent?
We can simplify multiples of a variable as follows:\begin{aligned} x+x+x &= 3 \times x \\ &= 3x \end{aligned}