Question

Find two numbers a and b whose sum a+b is -5 and whose difference a−b is 1.

Your answer is
a= ____
b= ____

Answer 1

The answer for a would be -2 and for b it would be -3. If you added both -2 and -3 together, you would get a sum of -5, and when for the other equation, the negative in front of b will cancel out the negative in front of -3, making it 3, and when you subtract -2 and 3, you'll end up with a difference of 1. a= -2 b= -3