- In this video we are going to take a look at
finding the absolute value
on the TI-83 Plus and TI-84 series of calculators.
Fairly simple, so we are just
going to concentrate on the home screen for right now.
If you have to find the absolute value of say,
X when the absolute value of X is equal to seven,
that's going to take some graphing.
And so if you are not there yet, don't worry about it.
I'll have that in a different video.
Alright, let's go ahead and get started.
So, I've got my calculator here
and I just want to find the absolute value
of negative three.
You might know that right off the top of your head
that the absolute value of negative three
is in fact three because,
the absolute value stands for the distance between
the number inside and zero.
And you take three steps in order to get to three
from zero from negative three.
But, if you want to do it in the calculator,
just because,
then you could do so
using the math button.
Press math.
It opens up a set of menus
and you scroll over to num, which stands for number
and this is where all of the stuff you might
want to use on numbers would go.
And the very first one, abs stands for absolute value.
So we are going to press enter to activate that
and we are just going to put in negative three.
Now don't forget, negative is down here
right next to the enter button,
not one of the blue buttons, so negative three.
Close the parenthesis, always a good idea
even though it might always be necessary.
Press enter, and we get the answer of three.
And so you can use this to check yourself
if you're really not sure.
Should I change the sign or should I not?
A very common mistake that I've seen
in students in the past is simply that
when they get this idea that it's just switch the sign
and it's not just switch the sign
as we'll see in this next one.
So in this next example,
we want to take the absolute value of eight.
And so we ask ourselves, well how far away is eight
from zero?
Well,
well, it could be eight but do I switch the sign or not?
Well, let's check.
So we press the math button,
that gets us over here to our little set of menus.
We scroll over to num, for number,
and we press enter for absolute value
or you could press the number one
and it will enter absolute value directly on the screen.
Let me put an eight, close the parenthesis,
and hit enter.
And we get eight.
And so our answer is eight, so we don't switch the sign.
Oh, that's a good idea.
Alright, that's how you find absolute value
on your TI-83 Plus or TI-84 series of calculators.