This is a summary of important ideas from Chapter 0.

1 § 0.1: The Real Numbers

A real number refers to any one of the following:

ˆ Natural Numbers: these are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, . . . . The collection of these numbers

is denoted by N. These are often called “positive integers” or “whole numbers”.

ˆ Integers: these are the natural numbers together with 0 and the negative of the
natural numbers; i.e., 0, ±1, ±2, ±3, . . . . The collection of all integers is denoted
by Z.

ˆ Rational Numbers: these are ratios of integers; i.e., any number of the form
a
b
6 0. These numbers are denoted by Q. Examples
with a and b integers and b =
include
1 −9
1, 2, −4, 0, , ,....
2 5
ˆ Irrational Numbers: these are numbers that are not rational; i.e., numbers
that
√ √cannot
√ be√expressed as a ratio of two integers. There are many examples:
2, 3, 5, − 7, e, π, ln(2), . . . .

ˆ Real Numbers: this is simply the collection of all of the above; i.e., natural
numbers together with integers, rational numbers, and irrational numbers. This
collection is denoted by R.

1.1 The Real Line

The real line allows us to visualize all real numbers on a single line as follows:
−2 1 √
3 2 2 e
−4 −3 −2 −1 0 1 2 8 3 4
| {z } 3
1 unit distance

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2 § 0.2: Order of Operations
There are many properties that the primary operations of addition, multiplication,
division, and subtraction satisfy. I will list them here and highlight the important ones.
Here a and b represent any two real numbers.
1. a + b = b + a and a · b = b · a so the order in which we add and multiply numbers is
not important. This is NOT the case for division and subtraction as the following
examples show:
2 + 3 = 3 + 2, 2 · 3 = 3 · 2, 2 − 3 6= 3 − 2, 2 ÷ 3 6= 3 ÷ 2.

2. (a + b) + c = a + (b + c) and (ab)c = a(bc) for example:

3 + (4 + 1) = (3 + 4) + 1, 3(4 · 2) = (3 · 4) · 2.

3. a(b + c) = ab + ac so
4(5 + 2) = 20 + 8 = 4 · 7 = 28.
a c ad ± bc
4. ± = :
b d bd
3 2 15 − 8 7
− = = .
4 5 20 20
a c ac
5. · = :
b d bd
3 2 6
· = .
4 5 2
a
b ad
6. c = :
d
bc
3
4 15
2 = .
5
8
The most important rule to remember is the following:
Note 1: multiplication has priority over addition, unless we have brackets (paran-
theses) that instruct us to do otherwise. That is, if there are no brackets, always do
multiplication before addition. If there are brackets, start from the inside of the brackets
and work your way out. The following examples show this fact:
2 + 3 · 4 = 2 + 12 = 14,
and it would be incorrect to say
5 · 4 = 20.
However,
(2 + 3) · 4 = 5 · 4 = 20.
Similarly, we can do
4 − 5 · (3 + 2 · (3 − 5)) = 4 − 5 · (3 − 4) = 4 + 5 = 9.

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3 § 0.3: Inequalities
There are four important relations (aside from the usual = relation) that can be defined
on real numbers (here a and b are real numbers):

ˆ < this is the “strictly less than” relation. We say a < b if b lies to the right of
a on the number line. For example, −1 < 0 and 2 < 2.01, but 2 6< 2, because 2
does not lie to the right of 2!

ˆ > this is the “strictly greater than” relation. It’s defined in a similar fashion as
<.

ˆ ≤ this is the “less than or equal to” relation. We say a ≤ b if either b lies to the
right of a on the number line OR a = b. Some examples are 1 ≤ 2, −π ≤ −3,
and 4 ≤ 4 (because 4 = 4).

ˆ ≥ this is the “greater than or equal to” relation. It’s defined in a similar fashion
as ≤.

Some properties of these inequalities are (note that I am using ≤ here but these results
hold for all the relations I have defined above):

ˆ adding the same number to both sides of an equality does not change (or disturb)
the direction of the inequality: in symbols, if a ≤ b and c is any number (positive,
negative, or zero), then a + c ≤ b + c. For example, 1 ≤ 3 and 1 + 1 ≤ 3 + 1 since
2 ≤ 4.

ˆ If a ≤ b and c is any positive number (so c > 0), then ac < bc. So multiplying an
inequality on both sides by a positive number, does not change the direction of
inequality. Example: 1 ≤ 2 and if c = 0.5, then 1(0.5) ≤ 2(0.5) because 0.5 ≤ 1.

ˆ If a ≤ b and c is a negative number (so c < 0), then ac ≥ bc. So multiplying an

inequality on both sides by a negative number, reverses the direction of inequality.
Example: 1 ≤ 2 and if c = −0.5, then 1(−0.5) ≥ 2(−0.5) because −0.5 is to the
right of −1.

ˆ If a ≤ b and a and b are both positive, then a1 ≥ 1b . Intuitively, when you divide
by a larger number, you should expect to get less! For instance, if you divide
a piece of chocolate between three people, each person would get a larger share
than if you were to divide the same piece of chocolate between four individuals.
However if a < 0 < b (so a is negative and b is positive), then a1 ≤ 1b because a1 is
still negative and 1b is still positive and positive numbers are always larger than
negative numbers.

Next, we move on to intervals. In short, intervals are used to describe a range of

values on the real line. There are different kinds of intervals:

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 ˆ Open Intervals: these are of the form (a, b) for some real numbers a and b such
that a < b. This interval contains every real number between a and b, excluding
a and b. Example: (1, 2) is the collection of all real numbers between 1 and 2,
not including 1 and 2.

ˆ Closed Intervals: these are of the form [a, b] for some real numbers a and b
such that a ≤ b (notice the difference with the open case where we require a < b).
This interval contains every real number between a and b, including a and b.
Example: [1, 2] is the collection of all real numbers between 1 and 2, including 1
and 2. So the only difference between (1, 2) and [1, 2] is in the endpoints 1 and 2.

ˆ Half Open Intervals: these are of the form (a, b] or [a, b). For instance (1, 2]
is the the same as (1, 2) except (1, 2] includes 2 whereas (1, 2) does not.

ˆ So the moral of the story is that ( and ) mean “do not include” whereas [ and ]
mean “do include”.

The intervals we have defined above are all bounded, meaning that they start at a
number and end at a number. For example, (1, 2) starts just to the right of 1 and
stops just to the left of 2. We are sometimes interested in intervals that, say contain
everything larger than a certain number. How should we represent such an interval?
We use the notion of infinity! Keep in mind that infinity is NOT a number!.

ˆ (a, ∞) : this is the collection of all numbers that are larger than a (but not a
itself because we are using the round bracket). Example: (0, ∞) contains every
positive number. The interval [a, ∞) is defined analogously.

ˆ (−∞, a) : this is the collection of all numbers that are smaller than a (but not
a itself because we are using the round bracket). Example: (−∞, −3) contains
every negative number that is smaller than −3 (so everything to the left of −3
on the real line. The interval (−∞, a] is defined analogously.

ˆ NOTE: you should never use a square bracket (i.e., [) with infinity because infinity
is not a number that you can include in your collection! For example, it would
be incorrect to write (1, ∞].

Here are a few examples (note that an empty circle indicates that the endpoint in NOT
included and a black circle indicates an endpoint that is included)
(1, 2)

−3 −1 0 1 [1, 2] 2

(1, 2]
(−∞, −3) (0, ∞)

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3.1 Absolute Value
The concept of absolute value is extremely useful and important. The absolute value
of a real number a, denoted |a|, is the distance from a to 0. This is why the
absolute value of any number is always non-negative; distance can never be negative!
This definition makes even more sense when we think of our construction of the real
line: we identified every real number as being a certain distance away from 0. So the
absolute value just tells us what this distance is. For instance, |2| should be the same
| − 2| because both 2 and −2 are two unit distance away from 0. In general, we have

a if a ≥ 0
|a| =
−a if a < 0

Note that if a < 0, then a is negative so −a > 0; we have already seen that if we
multiply both sides of the inequality a < 0 by −1, this should reverse the direction of
inequality, and hence −a > 0.

4 Exercises
1. Evaluate the following expressions.

(a) 2 − (3 − (4 − 5) · 3) · 2 + 4 −2 5
(c) ·
3 6
3
2 (d) 5
(b) + 3 −2
5 3

2. Write the following inequalities using interval notation (and vice versa).

(a) x > 1. (d) (−3, −1]

(b) x ≤ −1 (e) [2, 3) ∪ (4, 5)
(c) [2, 3] (f) −1 < x ≤ 4.

3. Solve the following inequalities for x and express your answer in interval notation.

(a) 1 − x > −2. (g) |x| ≥ 2.

(b) 1 − 3(x + 3) ≤ x. (h) |2 − x| < 3.
(c) −x ≥ −2. (i) |2x + 1| ≥ 1.
−1 (j) (x + 2)(x − 5) < 0.
(d) < −2.
x 1
1 (k) < 2.
(e) > 2. 1−x
x+1 x+1
(f) |x| < 3. (l) > 2.
x−3

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