Introduction to Algebra

So, what is Algebra?

I am guessing you might heard Algebra before, perhaps secondary school? Does it ring a bell? or perhaps you are familiar with the equation involving letters like ... x, y or w or that time where you are still a wee little confused teenager who couldn't understand maths at all? 

Does that seem familiar? Ina hope it does because now she will give you a recap or perhaps an introduction to what is " Algebra " !

First and foremost, Algebra. What is that name? Where does it come from? 

Yes. Algebra. Algebra is actually when we use a letter to represent a value or a number. 

So people are often confused as why Maths involves letter in their equation, and that Maths should stay with equations involving numbers not letters because people would get less confused. It's actually easy because it is easier to write X's than empty boxes. Ina says that is very true if you think about it. Just imagine writing, " If this empty box equals... " I wouldn't want to do that, would you?

You see in that point, Ina was very confused as well. She couldn't understand a thing or two about it but with the help of my friends, Ina did started getting motivated to learn it again. 

Now Ina will provide two examples of  equations and hopefully we can solve them together, shall we? Let us try a simple and a bit of a challenging one.

Examples

The father's age is 4 times the age of his son’s now. 10 years ago, the father was 10 times as old as his son. What is the present age of the father?

Let son's age be x.

Then,father’s current age will be 4x.

Father's age 10 years ago=4x-10=10x-100

4x-10x=-100+10

-6x=-90

-x=-90/6

X=15

If son’s current age is 15,then father's age (4x)=15×4=60…

Then son's age 10 years ago was 15-10=5,

And Father's age was 60-10= 50

Are you getting it? Or are you still a bit lost? Or are you just really good at solving algebra? Well here's another one!

|-2x + 2| -3 = -3

The equation to solve is given by. 
|-2x + 2| -3 = -3 
Add 3 to both sides of the equation and simplify. 
|-2x + 2| = 0 
|-2x + 2| is equal to 0 if -2x + 2 = 0. Solve for x to obtain 
x = 1



Thanks for reading, Ina. x