ShmoopTube

00:04

Graphing Absolute Value Equations, a la Shmoop.

00:09

The world got you down?

00:10

How would you like to live in the land of the positive?

00:13

What you need is the Ab-solution!

00:16

Just like absolute value, the Ab-solution makes everything positive.

00:21

Negative three? Positive three!

00:24

Grizzly bear about to eat your innards? Care bear!

00:28

Student loans have you forty-seven thousand in the red?

00:31

With the ab-solution, you're suddenly forty-seven thousand in the black!

00:35

The ab-Solution works with the magic of Absolute Value, which makes any value... positive.

00:41

Here's a graph where y equals the absolute value of x.

00:46

This means y must always be positive, regardless of the x-value.

00:50

And we'll call (0,0) positive for now.

00:57

The power of Absolute Value makes the graph always exist above the x-axis.

01:02

But wait!

01:03

It also makes it look like a happy chicken.

01:09

We can use absolute value equations to see what it looks like on a graph.

01:12

We can plot points, but they might not tell us the whole story.

01:17

Let's say we have the equation y equals the absolute value of 3x plus 4.

01:22

Before we make the stuff inside the absolute value bars positive,

01:26

it can be either positive OR negative.

01:29

We don't know which, so let's write both.

01:32

We can graph both these lines using their slopes and y-intercepts and see what we get.

01:38

But remember what absolute value is all about: making things positive.

01:43

That means anything below the x-axis is off-limits.

01:46

We should end up with a big V-looking thing.

01:49

So flip that battery around, and get the ab-solution today!

01:53

Only negative 19.99!

01:55

Just kidding!

01:56

But seriously. We're going to charge your credit card $19.99. Plus shipping and handling.

Full Transcript