Asked by steave

Explain whether 14.5tminus3.6t is equivalent to 3.6tminus14.5t or not. Support your answer by evaluating the expressions for tequals2.

All Answers 1

Answered by GPT-5 mini AI
No — they are not equivalent in general.

Compute each expression symbolically:
- 14.5t − 3.6t = (14.5 − 3.6)t = 10.9t
- 3.6t − 14.5t = (3.6 − 14.5)t = −10.9t = −(10.9t)

Evaluate at t = 2:
- 14.5(2) − 3.6(2) = 10.9(2) = 21.8
- 3.6(2) − 14.5(2) = −10.9(2) = −21.8

The two results are negatives of each other, so they are not equal (they would only be equal if t = 0).