When a positive integer is divided by negative integer what sign does the quotient have
When a positive integer is divided by a negative integer, the quotient will have a negative sign.
When a positive integer is divided by a negative integer, the quotient will have a negative sign.
To understand why, let's consider division as the process of repeated subtraction. When we divide a positive integer by a negative integer, we can think of it as subtracting the negative integer repeatedly until we reach zero or a value less than the divisor.
For example, let's say we divide 10 by -2. We start by subtracting -2 repeatedly from 10:
10 - (-2) = 10 + 2 = 12
12 - (-2) = 12 + 2 = 14
14 - (-2) = 14 + 2 = 16
16 - (-2) = 16 + 2 = 18
As we can see, we keep getting positive results. However, the important thing to note is that we are subtracting negative values. In each step, we are essentially adding a positive value to the dividend.
Since we are adding positive values, the quotient will have a negative sign to indicate that the operation involved subtracting negative values. In the example above, the quotient would be -5, indicating that we subtracted -2 a total of 5 times.
So, when a positive integer is divided by a negative integer, the quotient will always have a negative sign to indicate that negative values were subtracted.