Question

What is the difference between a reciprocal of a number and an opposite of the number?

Answer 1

Hint: Problems are quite easy to understand and simple to solve once we have a clear idea about the underlying concepts behind the question. To solve this effectively we need to have a thorough knowledge about fractions and number systems. Before starting to solve this problem, we first of all need to understand what reciprocal of a number and opposite of a number mean, without which we will not be able to solve these types of questions. The difference between these two is quite significant and putting one instead of the other will lead to a massive error in the problem resulting in a wrong solution.

Complete step-by-step solution:
Now we start off with the solution to the above given problem by writing that,
Let us consider any given number ‘n’, the reciprocal of this number ‘n’ is given by \[\dfrac{1}{n}\] . Now considering the same number, the opposite of this number ‘n’ is given by \[-n\] . From these two situations we can clearly understand that there is a significant difference between the two and replacing one with the other leads to a terrible mistake.

Note: For solving such problems we first of all need to have a clear cut idea of chapters like fractions and number systems. We also need to have a fair amount of knowledge of how reciprocals and opposites work. Another definition of reciprocal may say that, it is a number which when multiplied by the original number results in \[1\] . Similarly, an opposite is a number which when added to the original number results to \[0\] .