Question

What is the additive inverse of $ - 7$?

Answer 1

Hint: The additive inverse of a number is the number which in addition to the original number results in $0$. That is to say if a number $a$ is given and we talk about the additive inverse of the number $a$then the number $b$will be a number such that in addition to the number $a$will yield $0$, this specific equation can be denoted by, $a + b = 0$

Complete step-by-step solution:
Additive inverse is any number that can bring the overall result to zero. In other words, if a number is added to its additive inverse, the sum of both the numbers becomes zero.
The equation of number $b$ as the additive inverse for the number given in the question $ - 7$ will be given as,
$\Rightarrow - 7 + b = 0$,
We will solve this to get our answer.
$\Rightarrow - 7 = 0 - b$
Which upon eliminating the negative sign yields us with the value of $b$ as,
$b = 7$, which will be our additive inverse for the given number.

Thus the additive inverse of -7 is 7

Note: The additive inverse of a number can also be found out by getting the opposite of the given number that is multiplying it by $ - 1$. So for the example of the above question, our additive inverse would be,
$ - ( - 7)$
Which gives $7$ which is the same as by using the conventional method.