53 - 28

STEP 1: Rewrite the problem in standard subtraction form:

53
-28
���

STEP 2: THE "1"'s COLUMN

3 - 8 is not a positive number, so we must "carry over"

*SEE APPENDIX FOR DETAILS

STEP 3: To carry over, we must cross off the 5 from the 10's column, replace it
with a 4, and bring the extra 1 to the 1's column:

1
43
-28
���

STEP 4: Now, the problem in the 1's column is 13 - 8. This is 5:

1
43
-28
���
5

STEP 5: Now, we do the 10's column. 4 - 2 = 2:

1
43
-28
���
25

STEP 6: Just rewrite this nicely:

53 - 28 = 25

APPENDIX: What the fuck is this "carrying over" business, anyways?

Okay, well, note that the numbers 53 and 28 actually represent a certain amount of
things. In particular, we know, from the decimal system, that
53 = 5 * 10 + 3 * 1
and
28 = 2 * 10 + 8 * 1

where "10" is the 10th number. However, notice that there is nothing instrinsically
special about 10. In fact, the problem could as easily be posed as:

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| -
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
where instead of the typical numeric representation of the quantites, we just use
that many symbols (the symbol used is arbitrary). As a fun piece of trivia (not
that you would be interested despite this being a website about a trivia game) this
is called a unary number system, and tally marks are done like this (albeit grouped
into groups of five).

The problem can be solved:

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| -
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||| = ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

Where we literally remove the amount of symbols from the second term (the thing
being subtracted) from the amount of symbols in the first term (the thing from
which something is being subtracted).

An even simpler example would be:

||||| - || = |||

This is fine, but there is an obvious problem: Once you get to even a somewhat high
amount, it becomes impossible to tell what number you are dealing with. Thus, we
invented the symbols: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9.

Now, in principle, we could have kept inventing more symbols, but that would also
get to a cumbersome notion, so instead we said that when we have ten of something
(i.e., this: ||||||||||) we indicate that with this: 10 (NOTE: the fact that this
occurs at ten instead of any other amount is for convenience to humans, not because
of any instrinsic reason. Computers, for example, do this process starting at the
number two, and some old computers did it with three.) . The "1" indicates there is
one ten, and the "zero" indicates there are no extra ones. Thus, then, "11"
indicates this: |||||||||||, which is to say one "10" and one "1" i.e., ||||||||||
and | . "20" then indicates two tens and zero ones, or |||||||||| and ||||||||||.
To return to our question: "53" indicates five tens and 3 ones:
|||||||||| and |||||||||| and |||||||||| and |||||||||| and |||||||||| abd | and |
and |
"28" refers to two tens and 8 ones:
|||||||||| and |||||||||| and | and | and | and | and | and | and | and |

And so on. We repeat the process at 100. I am sure you are familiar with these
ideas, if not quite so formally; otherwise, you truly are fucked.

Now, before considering the more advanced question of 53 - 28, I am going to

discuss a simpler one:

---- BEGIN SIMPLE EXAMPLE ----

Now, let's consider an even simpler example: 36 - 13. In counting form, this is:

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| - |||||||||||||

or, (three tens and six ones) - (one ten and three ones) :

|||||||||| and |||||||||| and |||||||||| and | and | and | and | and | and | -
|||||||||| and | and | and |

In "convenient form", this is:

36
-13
���

Note that here the 1's column is easy: 6 - 3 = 3.

36
-13
���
3

This corresponds to:

|||||||||| and |||||||||| and |||||||||| and | and | and | and | and | and | -
|||||||||| and | and | and |
= |||||||||| and |||||||||| and |||||||||| and | and | and | -
||||||||||

Where we have taken the three one's from the second term and subtracted that amount
of 1's from the first term.
Note that three 1's are left in the first term, since 6-3=3

Now, in the tens column, we have 3 - 1 = 2 (it may be useful to remember this
actually represents 30 - 10 = 20, i.e., 3*10 - 1*10 = 2*10):

36
-13
���
23

This corresponds to:

|||||||||| and |||||||||| and |||||||||| and | and | and | -

||||||||||
= |||||||||| and |||||||||| and | and | and |

Where we have taken the one ten from the second term and subtracted that amount of
tens from the first term.
Note than two 10's are left in the first term, since 3-1=2.

Note also that the "ones" column is left alone; we are done with it, and the three
"ones" that are there beforehand are still there.

tl;dr math summary: 36 - 13 = (30 + 6) - (10 + 3) = (3*10 + 6*1) - (10*1 + 3*1) =

(3*10 + 3*1) - (10*1) = 2*10 + 3*1 = 20 + 3 = 23

---- END SIMPLE EXAMPLE ----

Anyways, when we want to solve 53 - 28, it's a little harder because, in the 1's
column, 3 - 8 is not positive. This corresponds to:

|||||||||| and |||||||||| and |||||||||| and |||||||||| and |||||||||| abd | and |
and | - |||||||||| and |||||||||| and | and | and | and | and | and | and | and |

Notice that we cannot remove 8 individual 1's from the first term right off the
bat. However, the key idea is that each of those "ten's" is literally just composed
of 10 "one"s. So we can, in effect, "change" them from one "ten" to ten "one"s.
Note that we are not really changing anything, the number is the same, but it is
represnted differently. That is:

|||||||||| |||||||||| |||||||||| |||||||||| |||||||||| | | |

- |||||||||| |||||||||| | | | | | | | |
= |||||||||| |||||||||| |||||||||| |||||||||| | | | | | | |
| | | | | | - |||||||||| |||||||||| | | | | | | | |

Note that I have gotten rid of the "and"s (which functioned only as + signs
anyways) to make space.

The key point is there are still the same number of symbols on each side of the
equal sign; I have just changed the representation on the left side (the first
term).

On the first line, there are five "tens" and three "ones" (and note 5*10 + 3*1 = 50
+ 3 = 53) and on the second line there are four "tens" and thriteen "ones" (and
note 4*10 + 13*1 = 40 + 13 = 53). But now we can safely subtract the "ones": 13 - 8
= 5, which is positive and fine! (I know that this particular result does not
"feel" right to you, but you are one of the most dysnumeric people I have ever
encountered and so I would take that as, if anything, a good sign.) Thus:

|||||||||| |||||||||| |||||||||| |||||||||| | | | | | | |

| | | | | | - |||||||||| |||||||||| | | | | | | | |
= |||||||||| |||||||||| |||||||||| |||||||||| | | | | |
- |||||||||| ||||||||||

Where we have got rid of the "ones" in the second term - there were eight of them,
and now there are five of them (eight less than 13) in the first term. Now, in our
more convenient, condensed notation, this entire procedure looks like:

53
-28
���

That's the original problem. Once again, 3 - 8 is not positive (more precisely, not
non-negative, i.e., negative). So we "convert" one of the tens into ten ones. That
is, the 5 "tens" in the first number become 4, and the 3 "ones" in the first number
become 13:

1
43
-28
���

We can solve 13 - 8 = 5 in the "ones" column:

1
43
-28
���
5

This is as well as I can format it here. (It should be obvious the 1 on top of the
3 is making the number 13.) Now, every thing I have done corresponds directly to
the above representation with symbols; make sure you see how exactly this works.
But now, in symbol form, we can procede easily since the there are more "tens" in
the first term than the second: It's a simple matter of doing 4 - 2 = 2 (again, it
may help to remember that this is actually representing 40 - 20 = 20, or 4*10 -
2*10 = 2*10):

|||||||||| |||||||||| |||||||||| |||||||||| | | | | |

- |||||||||| ||||||||||
= |||||||||| |||||||||| | | | | |

Again, notice that the "ones" are left alone: We have 5 remaining, and it stays
that way on both sides of the equal sign.

This step corresponds to:

1
43
-28
���
25

And there we go: We have shown that 53 - 28 = 25.

tl;dr math summary: 53 - 28 = (50 + 3) - (20 + 8) = (5*10 + 3*1) - (2*10 + 8*1) =

(4*10 + 13*1) - (2*10 + 8*1) = (4*10 + 5*1) - (2*10) = 2*10 + 5*1 = 20 + 5 = 25

We can now apply this same strategy to the even more advanced $1 - $0.47, or even
$50 - $1.47.