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Solve the equation: | |x-5|-4 | <= 0

Solve the equation: | |x-5|-4 | <= 0-example-1

1 Answer

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Answer: 0 ≤ x ≤ 2 or 8 ≤ x ≤ 10

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Work Shown

The rule I'll use is |x| < k becomes -k < x < k when k is positive

||x-5| - 4| ≤ 1

-1 ≤ |x-5| - 4 ≤ 1 ........ use the rule mentioned above

-1+4 ≤ |x-5| - 4+4 ≤ 1+4

3 ≤ |x-5| ≤ 5

3 ≤ |x-5| and |x-5| ≤ 5

We'll solve each piece separately in the next two sections.

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3 ≤ |x-5|

|x-5| ≥ 3

Use the rule that |x| ≥ k becomes x ≥ k or x ≤ -k when k is positive

So |x-5| ≥ 3 becomes x-5 ≥ 3 or x-5 ≤ -3

x-5 ≥ 3 solves to x ≥ 8

x-5 ≤ -3 solves to x ≤ 2

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use the rule that |x| ≤ k leads to -k ≤ x ≤ k when k is positive.

|x-5| ≤ 5

-5 ≤ x-5 ≤ 5

-5+5 ≤ x-5+5 ≤ 5+5

0 ≤ x ≤ 10

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Solving 3 ≤ |x-5| led to x ≤ 2 or x ≥ 8

Solving |x-5| ≤ 5 led to 0 ≤ x ≤ 10

Overlap the intervals to see that we get the disjoint separate intervals of 0 ≤ x ≤ 2 or 8 ≤ x ≤ 10

User Andreass
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