What is negative 2 minus negative 41?

Negative 2 minus negative 41 can be written as follows in mathematical terms:

(-2) - (-41)

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 2 minus negative 41 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 2 minus negative 41, we are subtracting a negative number and we go to the right. Specifically, we go 41 "spaces" to the right from -2 to +39 on the number line.

Here is negative 2 minus negative 41 displayed with the answer per the explanation above:

(-2) - (-41) = 39

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What is negative 2 minus negative 42?
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