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Ace the AP Computer Science Exam for High Schoolers

Basic Math Functions

Explore basic Java Math functions such as absolute value, power, square root, random number generation, minimum, maximum, and rounding. Understand how to use these methods to perform common mathematical computations in Java, helping you build essential programming skills for the AP Computer Science A exam.

We'll cover the following...

The Math class has many methods that allow you to perform mathematical operations on numbers. Let’s start covering the basic methods below.

Finding the absolute value

Java provides the abs() method, which returns the absolute value of the argument passed to it. The absolute value is the positive value of a number.

Run the program below.

Java
class AbsoluteValue 
{
    public static void main(String args[]) 
    {
        // Declaring variables
        int i1 = 2;
        int i2 = -2;
        // Calling abs() method on them
        System.out.println(Math.abs(i1));
        System.out.println(Math.abs(i1));
    }
}

We declare two integers: i1 and i2. Look at line 10. We call the abs() function with i1 as an argument. It prints 22. The absolute value of a positive value is the value itself. In the next line, we call the abs() function with i2 as an argument. It prints 22 after removing the −- (negative) sign.

⚙️ Note: Like int, we can also pass the float, double, or long type variable as a parameter to the Math.abs() function.

Raising the number to a power

Java provides the pow() method, which accepts a total of two double type parameters, and returns the value (double type) of the first parameter raised to the power of the second parameter.

Run the program below.

Java
class Power 
{
    public static void main( String args[] ) 
    {
        double x = Math.pow(4,2); // Applying pow() function
        System.out.println( x );
    } 
}

Look at line 5. We call the pow() function with 44 ...