What is negative 1 minus negative 2?
Negative 1 minus negative 2 can be written as follows in mathematical terms:
(-1) - (-2)
That is a lot of negatives! With all the minus signs it may be confusing to figure out how to subtract a negative number from another negative number.
Don't dispair. We will explain how to solve negative 1 minus negative 2 so you understand the problem and can easily solve similar problems in the future.
Start by picturing a number line that goes to negative infinity on the left side of 0 and positive infinity on the right side of 0:
∞ ..... -3, -2, -1, 0, +1, +2, +3, .... ∞
Looking at the number line above, we can make the following observations:
Adding a positive number goes to the right.
Adding a negative number goes to the left.
Adding and subtracting cannot go in the same direction on a number line. Therefore, this must also be true:
Subtracting a positive number goes to the left.
Subtracting a negative number goes to the right.
Thus, with the problem negative 1 minus negative 2, we are subtracting a negative number and we go to the right. Specifically, we go 2 "spaces" to the right from -1 to +1 on the number line.
Here is negative 1 minus negative 2 displayed with the answer per the explanation above:
(-1) - (-2) = 1
Negative Minus Negative Calculator
Get the answer to another negative number minus negative number problem here!
What is negative 1 minus negative 3?
Here is a similar negative minus negative problem that we explained and solved.
Copyright | Privacy Policy | Disclaimer | Contact