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org/wiki/Absolute_value

Absolute value
In mathematics, the absolute value or modulus |x| of a real number x is
the non-negative value of x without regard to its sign. Namely, |x| = x for a
positive x, |x| = −x for a negative x (in which case −x is positive), and
|0| = 0. For example, the absolute value of 3 is 3, and the absolute value of
−3 is also 3. The absolute value of a number may be thought of as its
distance from zero.

Generalisations of the absolute value for real numbers occur in a wide

variety of mathematical settings. For example, an absolute value is also The graph of the absolute value
defined for the complex numbers, the quaternions, ordered rings, fields and function for real numbers
vector spaces. The absolute value is closely related to the notions of
magnitude, distance, and norm in various mathematical and physical
contexts.

Contents The absolute value of a number

Terminology and notation may be thought of as its distance
Definition and properties from zero.
Real numbers
Complex numbers
Proof of the complex triangle inequality

Absolute value function

Relationship to the sign function
Derivative
Antiderivative
Distance
Generalizations
Ordered rings
Fields
Vector spaces
Composition algebras
Notes
References
External links

Terminology and notation

In 1806, Jean-Robert Argand introduced the term module, meaning unit of measure in French, specifically for the
complex absolute value,[1][2] and it was borrowed into English in 1866 as the Latin equivalent modulus.[1] The term

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absolute value has been used in this sense from at least 1806 in French[3] and 1857 in English.[4] The notation |x|, with
a vertical bar on each side, was introduced by Karl Weierstrass in 1841.[5] Other names for absolute value include
numerical value[1] and magnitude.[1] In programming languages and computational software packages, the absolute
value of x is generally represented by abs(x), or a similar expression.

The vertical bar notation also appears in a number of other mathematical contexts: for example, when applied to a set,
it denotes its cardinality; when applied to a matrix, it denotes its determinant. Vertical bars denote the absolute value
only for algebraic objects for which the notion of an absolute value is defined, notably an element of a normed division
algebra, for example a real number, a complex number, or a quaternion. A closely related but distinct notation is the
use of vertical bars for either the euclidean norm[6] or sup norm[7] of a vector in , although double vertical bars with
subscripts ( and , respectively) are a more common and less ambiguous notation.

Definition and properties

Real numbers
For any real number x, the absolute value or modulus of x is denoted by |x| (a vertical bar on each side of the
quantity) and is defined as[8]

The absolute value of x is thus always either positive or zero, but never negative: when x itself is negative (x < 0), then
its absolute value is necessarily positive (|x| = −x > 0).

From an analytic geometry point of view, the absolute value of a real number is that number's distance from zero along
the real number line, and more generally the absolute value of the difference of two real numbers is the distance
between them. Indeed, the notion of an abstract distance function in mathematics can be seen to be a generalisation of
the absolute value of the difference (see "Distance" below).

Since the square root symbol represents the unique positive square root (when applied to a positive number), it follows
that

is equivalent to the definition above, and may be used as an alternative definition of the absolute value of real
numbers.[9]

The absolute value has the following four fundamental properties (a, b are real numbers), that are used for
generalization of this notion to other domains:

Non-negativity
Positive-definiteness
Multiplicativity
Subadditivity, specifically the triangle inequality

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Non-negativity, positive definiteness, and multiplicativity are readily apparent from the definition. To see that
subadditivity holds, first note that one of the two alternatives of taking s as either –1 or +1 guarantees that
Now, since and , it follows that, whichever is the value of s, one
has for all real . Consequently, , as desired. (For a
generalization of this argument to complex numbers, see "Proof of the triangle inequality for complex numbers"
below.)

Some additional useful properties are given below. These are either immediate consequences of the definition or
implied by the four fundamental properties above.

Idempotence (the absolute value of the absolute value

is the absolute value)
Evenness (reflection symmetry of the graph)
Identity of indiscernibles (equivalent to positive-
definiteness)
Triangle inequality (equivalent to subadditivity)

(if ) Preservation of division (equivalent to multiplicativity)

Reverse triangle inequality (equivalent to subadditivity)

Two other useful properties concerning inequalities are:

or

These relations may be used to solve inequalities involving absolute values. For example:

The absolute value, as "distance from zero", is used to define the absolute difference between arbitrary real numbers,
the standard metric on the real numbers.

Complex numbers

Since the complex numbers are not ordered, the definition given at the top for the real absolute value cannot be
directly applied to complex numbers. However the geometric interpretation of the absolute value of a real number as
its distance from 0 can be generalised. The absolute value of a complex number is defined by the Euclidean distance of
its corresponding point in the complex plane from the origin. This can be computed using the Pythagorean theorem:
for any complex number

where x and y are real numbers, the absolute value or modulus of z is denoted |z| and is defined by[10]

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where Re(z) = x and Im(z) = y denote the real and imaginary parts of z,
respectively. When the imaginary part y is zero, this coincides with the
definition of the absolute value of the real number x.

When a complex number z is expressed in its polar form as

with (and θ ∈ arg(z) is the argument (or

phase) of z), its absolute value is

Since the product of any complex number z and its complex conjugate
The absolute value of a complex
with the same absolute value, is always the non-negative real
number is the distance of from
number , the absolute value of a complex number can be the origin. It is also seen in the
conveniently expressed as picture that and its complex
conjugate have the same absolute
value.

resembling the alternative definition for reals:

The complex absolute value shares the four fundamental properties given above for the real absolute value.

In the language of group theory, the multiplicative property may be rephrased as follows: the absolute value is a group
homomorphism from the multiplicative group of the complex numbers onto the group under multiplication of positive
real numbers.[11]

Importantly, the property of subadditivity ("triangle inequality") extends to any finite collection of n complex
numbers as

This inequality also applies to infinite families, provided that the infinite series is absolutely convergent. If
Lebesgue integration is viewed as the continuous analog of summation, then this inequality is analogously obeyed by
complex-valued, measurable functions when integrated over a measurable subset :

(This includes Riemann-integrable functions over a bounded interval as a special case.)

Proof of the complex triangle inequality

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The triangle inequality, as given by , can be demonstrated by applying three easily verified properties of the
complex numbers: Namely, for every complex number ,

(i): there exists such that and ;

(ii): .

Also, for a family of complex numbers , . In particular,

(iii): if , then .

Proof of : Choose such that and (summed over ). The following

computation then affords the desired inequality:

It is clear from this proof that equality holds in exactly if all the are non-negative real numbers, which in turn
occurs exactly if all nonzero have the same argument, i.e., for a complex constant and real constants
for .

Since measurable implies that is also measurable, the proof of the inequality proceeds via the same
technique, by replacing with and with .[12]

Absolute value function

The real absolute value function is continuous
everywhere. It is differentiable everywhere except
for x = 0. It is monotonically decreasing on the
interval (−∞,0] and monotonically increasing on
the interval [0,+∞). Since a real number and its
opposite have the same absolute value, it is an even
function, and is hence not invertible. The real
absolute value function is a piecewise linear, convex
function.

Both the real and complex functions are

idempotent.

The graph of the absolute value function for real numbers

Relationship to the sign function

The absolute value function of a real number returns its value irrespective of its sign, whereas the sign (or signum)
function returns a number's sign irrespective of its value. The following equations show the relationship between these
two functions:

or

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and for x ≠ 0,

Derivative
The real absolute value function has a derivative for every x ≠ 0, but
is not differentiable at x = 0. Its derivative for x ≠ 0 is given by the
step function:[13][14]

The subdifferential of |x| at x = 0 is the interval [−1,1].[15]

Composition of absolute value with a cubic
The complex absolute value function is continuous everywhere but function in different orders
complex differentiable nowhere because it violates the Cauchy–
Riemann equations.[13]

The second derivative of |x| with respect to x is zero everywhere except zero, where it does not exist. As a generalised
function, the second derivative may be taken as two times the Dirac delta function.

Antiderivative
The antiderivative (indefinite integral) of the real absolute value function is

where C is an arbitrary constant of integration. This is not a complex antiderivative because complex antiderivatives
can only exist for complex-differentiable (holomorphic) functions, which the complex absolute value function is not.

Distance
The absolute value is closely related to the idea of distance. As noted above, the absolute value of a real or complex
number is the distance from that number to the origin, along the real number line, for real numbers, or in the complex
plane, for complex numbers, and more generally, the absolute value of the difference of two real or complex numbers is
the distance between them.

The standard Euclidean distance between two points

and

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in Euclidean n-space is defined as:

This can be seen as a generalisation, since for and real, i.e. in a 1-space, according to the alternative definition of
the absolute value,

and for and complex numbers, i.e. in a 2-space,

The above shows that the "absolute value"-distance, for real and complex numbers, agrees with the standard Euclidean
distance, which they inherit as a result of considering them as one and two-dimensional Euclidean spaces, respectively.

The properties of the absolute value of the difference of two real or complex numbers: non-negativity, identity of
indiscernibles, symmetry and the triangle inequality given above, can be seen to motivate the more general notion of a
distance function as follows:

A real valued function d on a set X × X is called a metric (or a distance function) on X, if it satisfies the following four
axioms:[16]

Non-negativity
Identity of indiscernibles
Symmetry
Triangle inequality

Generalizations

Ordered rings
The definition of absolute value given for real numbers above can be extended to any ordered ring. That is, if a is an
element of an ordered ring R, then the absolute value of a, denoted by |a|, is defined to be:[17]

where −a is the additive inverse of a, 0 is the additive identity element, and < and ≥ have the usual meaning with

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respect to the ordering in the ring.

Fields
The four fundamental properties of the absolute value for real numbers can be used to generalise the notion of absolute
value to an arbitrary field, as follows.

A real-valued function v on a field F is called an absolute value (also a modulus, magnitude, value, or valuation)[18] if
it satisfies the following four axioms:

Non-negativity

Positive-definiteness

Multiplicativity

Subadditivity or the triangle inequality

Where 0 denotes the additive identity element of F. It follows from positive-definiteness and multiplicativity that
v(1) = 1, where 1 denotes the multiplicative identity element of F. The real and complex absolute values defined above
are examples of absolute values for an arbitrary field.

If v is an absolute value on F, then the function d on F × F, defined by d(a, b) = v(a − b), is a metric and the following
are equivalent:

d satisfies the ultrametric inequality for all x, y, z in F.

is bounded in R.

for every

for all
for all

An absolute value which satisfies any (hence all) of the above conditions is said to be non-Archimedean, otherwise it
is said to be Archimedean.[19]

Vector spaces
Again the fundamental properties of the absolute value for real numbers can be used, with a slight modification, to
generalise the notion to an arbitrary vector space.

A real-valued function on a vector space V over a field F, represented as ǁ·ǁ, is called an absolute value, but more
usually a norm, if it satisfies the following axioms:

For all a in F, and v, u in V,

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Non-negativity

Positive-definiteness
The norm of a vector is also called its length or magnitude.

In the case of Euclidean space Rn, the function defined

Positive by
homogeneity or positive scalability

Subadditivity or the triangle inequality

is a norm called the Euclidean norm. When the real numbers R are considered as the one-dimensional vector
space R1, the absolute value is a norm, and is the p-norm (see Lp space) for any p. In fact the absolute value is the
"only" norm on R1, in the sense that, for every norm ǁ·ǁ on R1, ǁxǁ = ǁ1ǁ ⋅ |x|. The complex absolute value is a special
case of the norm in an inner product space. It is identical to the Euclidean norm, if the complex plane is identified with
the Euclidean plane R2.

Composition algebras
Every composition algebra A has an involution x → x* called its conjugation. The product in A of an element x and its
conjugate x* is written N(x) = x x* and called the norm of x.

The real numbers ℝ, complex numbers ℂ, and quaternions ℍ are all composition algebras with norms given by definite
quadratic forms. The absolute value in these division algebras is given by the square root of the composition algebra
norm.

In general the norm of a composition algebra may be a quadratic form that is not definite and has null vectors.
However, as in the case of division algebras, when an element x has a non-zero norm, then x has a multiplicative
inverse given by x*/N(x).

Notes
1. Oxford English Dictionary, Draft Revision, June 2008
2. Nahin, O'Connor and Robertson (http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Mathematicians/Argand.html), and
functions.Wolfram.com. (http://functions.wolfram.com/ComplexComponents/Abs/35/); for the French sense, see
Littré, 1877
3. Lazare Nicolas M. Carnot, Mémoire sur la relation qui existe entre les distances respectives de cinq point
quelconques pris dans l'espace, p. 105 at Google Books (https://books.google.com/books?id=YyIOAAAAQAAJ&
pg=PA105)
4. James Mill Peirce, A Text-book of Analytic Geometry at Google Books (https://books.google.com
/books?id=RJALAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA42). The oldest citation in the 2nd edition of the Oxford English Dictionary is
from 1907. The term absolute value is also used in contrast to relative value.
5. Nicholas J. Higham, Handbook of writing for the mathematical sciences, SIAM. ISBN 0-89871-420-6, p. 25
6. Spivak, Michael (1965). Calculus on Manifolds. Boulder, CO: Westview. p. 1. ISBN 0805390219.
7. Munkres, James (1991). Analysis on Manifolds. Boulder, CO: Westview. p. 4. ISBN 0201510359.
8. Mendelson, p. 2 (https://books.google.com/books?id=A8hAm38zsCMC&pg=PA2).
9. Stewart, James B. (2001). Calculus: concepts and contexts. Australia: Brooks/Cole. ISBN 0-534-37718-1., p. A5

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10. González, Mario O. (1992). Classical Complex Analysis (https://books.google.com/books?id=ncxL7EFr7GsC&

pg=PA19). CRC Press. p. 19. ISBN 9780824784157.
11. Lorenz, Falko (2008), Algebra. Vol. II. Fields with structure, algebras and advanced topics, Universitext, New York:
Springer, p. 39, doi:10.1007/978-0-387-72488-1 (https://doi.org/10.1007%2F978-0-387-72488-1),
ISBN 978-0-387-72487-4, MR 2371763 (https://www.ams.org/mathscinet-getitem?mr=2371763).
12. Rudin, Walter (1976). Principles of Mathematical Analysis (https://archive.org/details/1979RudinW). New York:
McGraw-Hill. p. 325. ISBN 0-07-054235-X.
13. Weisstein, Eric W. Absolute Value. From MathWorld – A Wolfram Web Resource. (http://mathworld.wolfram.com
/AbsoluteValue.html)
14. Bartel and Sherbert, p. 163
15. Peter Wriggers, Panagiotis Panatiotopoulos, eds., New Developments in Contact Problems, 1999,
ISBN 3-211-83154-1, p. 31–32 (https://books.google.com/books?id=tiBtC4GmuKcC&pg=PA31)
16. These axioms are not minimal; for instance, non-negativity can be derived from the other three:
0 = d(a, a) ≤ d(a, b) + d(b, a) = 2d(a, b).
17. Mac Lane, p. 264 (https://books.google.com/books?id=L6FENd8GHIUC&pg=PA264).
18. Shechter, p. 260 (https://books.google.com/books?id=eqUv3Bcd56EC&pg=PA260). This meaning of valuation is
rare. Usually, a valuation is the logarithm of the inverse of an absolute value
19. Shechter, pp. 260–261 (https://books.google.com/books?id=eqUv3Bcd56EC&pg=PA260).

References
Bartle; Sherbert; Introduction to real analysis (4th ed.), John Wiley & Sons, 2011 ISBN 978-0-471-43331-6.
Nahin, Paul J.; An Imaginary Tale; Princeton University Press; (hardcover, 1998). ISBN 0-691-02795-1.
Mac Lane, Saunders, Garrett Birkhoff, Algebra, American Mathematical Soc., 1999. ISBN 978-0-8218-1646-2.
Mendelson, Elliott, Schaum's Outline of Beginning Calculus, McGraw-Hill Professional, 2008.
ISBN 978-0-07-148754-2.
O'Connor, J.J. and Robertson, E.F.; "Jean Robert Argand" (http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk
/Mathematicians/Argand.html).
Schechter, Eric; Handbook of Analysis and Its Foundations, pp. 259–263, "Absolute Values"
(https://books.google.com/books?id=eqUv3Bcd56EC&pg=PA259), Academic Press (1997) ISBN 0-12-622760-8.

External links
Hazewinkel, Michiel, ed. (2001) [1994], "Absolute value" (https://www.encyclopediaofmath.org/index.php?title=p
/a010370), Encyclopedia of Mathematics, Springer Science+Business Media B.V. / Kluwer Academic Publishers,
ISBN 978-1-55608-010-4
absolute value (https://planetmath.org/AbsoluteValue) at PlanetMath.org.
Weisstein, Eric W. "Absolute Value" (http://mathworld.wolfram.com/AbsoluteValue.html). MathWorld.

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