Adding Integers (Jump to: Lecture | Video )

Remember that any number that can be found on a number line is an integer.

Figure 1.

The number line can be used to help with addition of integers that have different signs. Let's use the number line to solve the following equation:

(-2) + 5 = ?

Figure 2.

We start at zero. Because the first term is (-2), we start by substracting 2:

Figure 3.

Next, we add the second term (5):

Figure 4.

This gives us our final answer:

(-2) + 5 = 3