Question

How do you write the expression for “A number decreased by 17 is less than or equal to -4 “?

Answer 1

Hint: First we would assume that the number is x. The statement in the problem is “A number decreased by 17 is less than or equal to -4 “.That means $x-17$ is less than or equal to -4.

Complete step by step answer:
We have to write an expression for “A number decreased by 17 is less than or equal to -4 “
Let’s assume the number is x.
It says a number decreased by 17 that means $x-17$ which is less than equal to -4
The mathematical expression for less than or equal to is $\le $
So the expression for “A number decreased by 17 is less than or equal to -4 “is
$x-17\le -4$
If further solve the expression
$x\le 13$
The statement for the above expression is “A number is less than equal to 13”
Both the statements are mathematically the same.

Note:
 In mathematics 2 different statements can have the same meaning as we have seen in the above problem. Another example is “ A number increased by 1 greater than or equal 6 and A number decreased by 1 greater than equal to 4 “ if we observe the meaning of both statements are same that is “ The number is greater than or equal to 5 “. So we can write infinity many statements of a mathematical expression which will have the same meaning.