Question

A pencil weighs $0.827\,grams$. A ball point per weighs $1.23\,grams$. What is the difference in weights of the writing utensils?

Answer 1

Hint: In this question, two weights are given and to find the difference between these two weights, we have to subtract them from each other. But we want the answer to be positive so we should subtract the smaller weight from the larger weight.

Complete step by step answer:
In the above question, it is given that the weight of a pencil is $0.827\,grams$ and the weight of ball point pen is $1.23\,grams$. We have to find the difference between the weights of these two utensils. Therefore, we should subtract the smaller weight from the larger weight as we want the difference to be positive. Now,
$\text{Difference in weight}$ = weight of ball point pen $-$ weight of pencil
$ \Rightarrow \text{Difference in weight} =\left( {1.23 - 0.827} \right)\,grams$
$ \therefore \text{Difference in weight} =0.403\,grams$

Hence, the difference between the two weights is $0.403\,grams$.

Note: In this question we have subtract the smaller number from the larger number because we want a positive difference but not a negative one. There is no sense of a negative difference as we are dealing with the weights of two objects and the weight can’t be negative. If the weight of one object is given in one unit and the weight of another object in another unit, then we can’t simply find the difference between them. For example, if one weight in the above question is given in grams and the second one in kilograms, then we have to convert either gram into kilogram or kilogram into gram to find the difference.