Question

How do you find the absolute value of $\left| { - 21} \right|?$

Answer 1

Hint: As we know that the absolute value is defined as the number which describes the distance of a number on the number line from $0$without taking into consideration which direction from zero the number lies. The absolute value of a number can never have negative values. The number written above is in modulus.

Complete step by step answer:
As per the given we have a number $ - 21$.
We should know that for negative numbers also, the absolute value is the corresponding positive value. It can be written as the absolute value of $\left| x \right|$ is always $x$, when $x > 0$.
So as per the question, the absolute value of $\left| { - 21} \right|$ can be written as $21$, because the absolute value means the distance of the number from $0$ and distance can never be negative.
Hence the absolute value of the number $\left| { - 21} \right|$ is $21$.

Note: We should note that if the value of the number is less than $0$ which means negative then we take the negative value of that number as its absolute value. As for example, from the question above we have $x = - 21$ as $x < 0$, then the absolute value of $\left| { - 21} \right|$ is $ - \left( { - 21} \right) = 21$. Also the only time the absolute value becomes $0$ when the number itself is