Solving Variables on Both Sides of the Equation

Narrator: We are going to solve for the variable but if I look at my equation, I got my variable m on both sides of the equation so I need to combine like terms and work to get my m’s on one side and my other terms on the other side of the equal sign. Alright I’m going to begin by finding the additive inverse of negative 3 which is positive 3 so I’m going to add 3 to both sides and that leaves me with m on the left side because negative 3 plus 3 is zero so I’m just left with m. And that equals 2 times m and over here we have negative 3 plus 3 which is also zero so I’m just left with 2 m on this side. And now I can subtract m from both sides and on this side I’m left with zero and that equals 2m minus 1 m is just m. So we can see that m is equal to zero. If I want to check my work I can plug my m which I found to be zero back into wherever that variable is in the original equation and as long as equal to one another I know I got the right answer so let’s try that. So we have m minus 3 is equal to 2 times m minus 3 so if we plug in our zero. We have 0 minus 3 is equal to 2 times 0 minus 3. And 0 minus 3 is a negative 3 and that will equal 2 times 0 is 0 and so we’re just left with the negative 3 over here as well. So yes both sides are equal to one another so that tells us so we got the right answer.

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