If you know that a < b, and both a and b are positive numbers, then what must be true about the relationship between the opposites of these numbers? Explain.

If a is less than b, and they are both positive, then a is closer to 0 than b. The opposite of a is also closer to zero than the opposite of b, so the opposite of a must be larger than the opposite of b. The number further left on a number line is the smaller number, for positive numbers, the number closest to zero is smaller.