Foundations

For years, doctors and engineers have worked to make artificial limbs — a prosthetic hand, for instance — for people who need them. One such hand is different: it was developed using a 3D printer, so it can be produced much like you print words on a sheet of paper, faster and less expensively than by conventional methods. Biomedical engineers are working to develop 3D-printed organs that may one day save lives, and NASA scientists are designing ways to use 3D printers to build on the Moon or Mars.

Technology like this depends on the ability to understand the language of algebra. Engineers must be able to translate observations and needs in the natural world into mathematical commands that can direct a printer. This chapter reviews that language and takes your first steps toward working with algebraic concepts.

Sections

• Use the Language of Algebra — factors and prime factorizations, variables and algebraic symbols, the order of operations, evaluating expressions, and combining like terms.
• Integers — the absolute value of a number and the rules for adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing positive and negative integers.
• Fractions — simplifying fractions and multiplying, dividing, adding, and subtracting them, including complex fractions.
• Decimals — operating on decimals, converting between decimals, fractions, and percents, and working with square roots.
• Properties of Real Numbers — the commutative, associative, distributive, identity, inverse, and zero properties.

This chapter overview is adapted from Intermediate Algebra 2e, Chapter 1 Introduction by Lynn Marecek and Andrea Honeycutt Mathis, © OpenStax, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Access the original for free at openstax.org. Changes: condensed the chapter introduction and recast the chapter outline as a section list.