Hey it’s Professor Dave, let’s learn some

algebra.

When you learn math in school, up until a

certain point, it’s just called math.

Then all of a sudden, one day, math class

isn’t just math, it’s called algebra.

Although it may seem scary to graduate from

plain old math to algebra, it won’t be so

daunting once we realize that algebra uses

symbols just like arithmetic does, and it

is quite easy to make these symbols intuitive

so that you can manipulate algebraic equations.

Let’s start out by discussing that algebraic

essential, the unknown variable.

First of all, what is a variable?

In math, a variable is a letter or symbol

that represents a quantity that can change.

This is different from a constant, which is

a letter or symbol that represents a quantity

that does not change.

A variable can be just about anything.

The inches of rain in your town in a particular

month, the price of gasoline, the speed of

a plane, whatever it is that you want to do

math with.

Whereas with arithmetic our equations simply

contain numbers and arithmetic operations,

an algebraic expression will always include

one or more variables, as well as some numbers

and operations.

For example, 3x + 2 is an algebraic expression.

We can evaluate this expression for any value

of x that we choose, we simply plug the value

into the expression, understanding that we

can now represent the multiplication of two

numbers by simply placing them next to each

other.

We could make a table as we do this.

When x is one, we replace the x with a one.

Three times one is three, plus two is five,

so when x is one, this expression is equal

to five.

When x is two, we get six plus two, or eight.

When x is three, we get nine plus two, or

eleven, and so forth.

This is useful, because we can use algebraic

equations to model real-world situations and

make meaningful statements about them.

Instead of just using arithmetic to say that

five cheeseburgers, at three dollars each,

will cost a total of fifteen dollars, we can

set up an algebraic relationship that allows

us to do a wide variety of calculations that

are pertinent to this situation, like how

Y, the total cost, is equal to three times

X, the number of cheeseburgers.

The trick is just knowing how to set up the

equation.

Let’s say that you love to watch TV, but

not as much as your friend, Bobo.

However many hours of TV you watch in a day,

Bobo watches twice as much plus an additional

hour.

Well if you watch X hours of TV, and Bobo

watches Y hours of TV, we can relate X and

Y with an equation just like we did for the

burgers, where Y equals 2X plus one.

Whatever you watch, which is represented by

X, we double it and add one to get Y, the

amount Bobo watches.

While that was a pretty trivial example, these

kinds of algebraic relationships allow us

to do some pretty powerful things.

Before we start doing lots of algebra, there’s

a bit more to learn about algebraic properties,
so let’s move forward now.