The word for the punctuation mark, on the other hand, comes from Îºá¿¶Î»Î¿Î½ (or kÅlon), which means âlimbâ or âclauseâ â and it is used because one of the main functions of the colon is to separate two clauses, where the second clause explains or follows from the first.
The goal in solving an equation is to get the variable by itself on one side of the equation and a number on the other side of the equation. To isolate the variable, we must reverse the operations acting on the variable. We do this by performing the inverse of each operation on both sides of the equation.
The word 'inverse' means reverse in direction or position. It comes from the Latin word 'inversus,' which means to turn upside down or inside out. In mathematics, an inverse operation is an operation that undoes what was done by the previous operation. The four main mathematical operations are addition, subtraction, multiplication, division. The inverse of addition is subtraction and vice versa. The inverse of multiplication is division and vice versa.