Absolute value is defined as the magnitude of a real number without regard to its sign (plus or minus). Alternatively, we might think of absolute value being how far a real number is away from zero without regard to the direction of that number from zero. For example, +9 and -9 are both 9 units away from zero, so the absolute value of +9 is 9 and the absolute value of -9 is also 9.

The mathematical symbol used to denote absolute value is a ‘bar’ on both sides of the number. For example, the absolute value of -5 is written as and the absolute value of 12.6 is written as .

As another example, if we want to know the absolute value of when , we would write .

So, in effect, absolute value means to remove any negative sign in front of a number and consider all numbers as positive.

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