Question

1. What is the difference between a constant and a coefficient?  When can you add or subtract coefficients?

Answer 1

A constant is a variable that never changes, like the symbol for pi is ALWAYS 3.1415...

Answer 2

a coefficiant is a number behind a variable like x or y, so 5x+4 the coefficient is 5, in 5x+3y there are 2 coefficients, 5 and 3

Answer 3

you can only add them together if the variables are the same, so if you had 3x +5x the variables are both x, and the coefficients are 3 and 5 so you can add them together to make 8x

Answer 4

but in something like 5x+3y you cannot add them together because the variables (x and y) are not the same they both have to be x or both have to be y