What is absolute value?

The "Absolute" value of a term is the magnitude of the term regardless of whether the term is positive or negative. It can be thought of as the distance between two numbers (and distances cannot be negative)

In practice, the absolute value of a positive number is still the same positive number

e.g. | 2 | = 2

However, the absolute value of a negative number turns it into a positive number

e.g | -2 | = 2