The book is trying to show me that reducing a fraction or adding
two fractions sometimes only requires that -1 be factored from
one or more denominators. Here is the example they give: 1.In
the first step here I understand factoring out the "-" (the -1
value) because if the variable does not have a number
coefficient we can assume its one so this part is fine. once we
distribute the "-" we get a negative y and a positive x,
therefore we can rearrange the denominator to match the
numerator in 3.Next we have Now here is where I have a problem
how can we know the values of both of these are 1 and -1? I am
not certain how this is accomplished. Does my logic up to 3's
question look correct also?