REPRESENTING REAL

NUMBERS IN A
NUMBER LINE
 NUMBER LINE

• A straight line extended on both directions as

illustrated by arrowheads and is used to represent the
set of real numbers. On the real number line, there is a
point for every real number and there is a real
number for every point.
Examples:
Example 1
1 5
Graph the following set of real numbers: {−1, − , 0, }.
3 3
Solution
Graph the numbers on a number line with a scale where each
1
tick mark represents unit.
3
Example 2
Graph the following set of real numbers: {16, -8, 4, -12, -16}.
Solution
Graph the numbers on a number line with a scale where each
tick mark represents 4 unit.

-16 -12 -8 -4 0 4 8 12 16
 ORDERING REAL NUMBERS
When comparing real numbers on a number line, the
larger number will always lie to the right of the smaller
one.

SMALLER LARGER

-4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4
Example 3
Graph the following set of real numbers and arrange in
decreasing/increasing order. {16, -8, 4, -12, -16}

-16 -12 -8 -4 0 4 8 12 16
Arrangement
Decreasing order: {16, 4, -8, -12, -16}
Increasing order: {-16, -12, -8, 4, 16}
 ORDER RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN REAL NUMBERS

We use symbols to help us efficiently communicate relationships

between numbers on the number line. The symbols used to
describe an order relationship between real numbers are as
follows:
= “is equal to”
< “less than”
> “greater than”
Example:
Fill in the blank with <, =, or >
< 2
1. -2 ____
3
2. = 0.75
____
4
> -120
3. -10 ____
2 3
4. <
____
5 7
I. Graph the following set of real numbers and arrange in
decreasing/increasing order.
1. {-1, 3, 5, -2, 0} 3. {1.25, -0.25, -0.50, 0.75, -1}
1 2 6 3 4
2. {− , , − , , − }
7 7 7 7 7
II. Fill in the blank with <, =, or >
3 3
1. -0.1 ____ 1.1 5. 21 ____ -21 9. − _____
6 4
1
2. 2
____ 0.51 6. 4 ____ 16 10. 0.1 ____ 0
2 6
3. 1 ____ -1000 7. ____
4 12
5 6
4. ____ 8. 0.0001 ____ 0.001
6 5