The process of subtracting a literal from another literal to find their difference is called subtraction of literals.
A literal can be connected to another literal number mathematically by a minus symbol. It is a basic mathematical operation and mainly used to find the difference between the literals. In algebra, there is a mathematical procedure to find the difference between any two literals and it is called the subtraction of literals.
If you are a beginner, you should firstly know how to subtract a literal from another literal number. There are two different cases in algebra to know subtracting literals numbers. So, let’s understand every case for subtracting the literal numbers from below simple examples.
Let’s denote a quantity by a literal number $x$. Now, add the literal $x$ to same literal number by a plus sign.
$x+x$
The literals are in same form and we need to find their sum mathematically. Each literal number is written once in each term of the expression. So, every literal can be written as one time $x$.
$\implies$ $x+x$ $\,=\,$ $1 \times x$ $+$ $1 \times x$
Now, $x$ is a common factor in each term. So, the common factor can be taken out from the terms for simplifying the expression further on the right-hand side of the equation.
$\implies$ $x+x$ $\,=\,$ $(1+1) \times x$
$\implies$ $x+x$ $\,=\,$ $(2) \times x$
$\implies$ $x+x$ $\,=\,$ $2 \times x$
$\,\,\,\therefore\,\,\,\,\,\,$ $x+x$ $\,=\,$ $2x$
Therefore, it is proved that the sum of the literals in same form is equal to the number of times the literal number is added. Now, you can add the like literals by following this principle in algebra.
Let’s represent a quantity by a literal $x$ and add it to another literal number $y$ by a plus symbol to find their sum.
$x+y$
The values of both literals $x$ and $y$ are unknown, and they are not in same form. So, it is not possible to combine them mathematically but the sum of them is only written as an expression in algebra.
The above two cases explain you the basic mathematical operation with literals to know how to add the literal numbers of same kind and different. According to above two cases, you can now add two or more literal numbers to find their summation in algebra.
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