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Ahmad Baumbach

Lvl 10
3y ago
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14y ago

Negative x multiplied by 2 is negative 2x but negative x multiplied by (2) is positive x.

The above answer is not correct, sorry. As the question is stated, indeed -x2 does equal -x2. Now, I would imagine that the person asking the question really wanted to state it using squares: Why is -x^2 not equal to (-x)^2? (NOTE: the caret "^" means "raised to a power") In this case no mater what x is (negative or positive) the second term will always be positive (if x is negative then -x = +x and +x squared will be positive.) The first term however could be negative or positive depending on what x is. If x is positive then the term will be negative because the "square" is only squaring the x not the negative sign. If x is negative then the term will be positive ( -(-x) = +x). Hope this helps!

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Q: Explain why -x2 and -x2 are not equal?
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