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Question:

How do find the additive inverse or opposite of 17?

How do find the additive inverse or opposite of 17?

Answer:

Mathsman is right. The additive inverse of a is number, call it a', such that a+a' 0. I think that you can see from that that it's just the negative of the number. Note that this means that 00'. The multiplicative inverse of b, call it b', is such that b*b'1, thus as long as b is not equal to zero then b'1/b. Note that zero does not have a multiplicative inverse. Also note that these properties work for more complicated things. For example, for a matrix: a non-zero matrix does not necessarily have a multiplicative inverse.
The additive inverse of a, written a ' is defined by a + a ' 0. Therefore the additive inverse of 17 is -17.

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