Americans love their pets. Over 71 million U.S. households owned pets in 2008.
Combined, these households spent more than $44 billion pampering their animal
friends. The fastest-growing segment of the pet industry is the high-end luxury area,
which includes everything from gourmet pet foods, designer toys, and specialty
furniture to groomers, dog walkers, boarding in posh pet hotels, and even pet
therapists. (Source:American Pet Products Manufacturers Association.)
In Exercise 101of Section 1.3,we use an algebraic expression, one of the
topics of this chapter, to determine how much Americans have spent annually on
their pets in recent years.
Review of the Real
Number System
1.1 Basic Concepts
1.2 Operations on Real Numbers
1.3 Exponents, Roots,
and Order of
Operations
1.4 Properties of Real Numbers
Numbers
1
CHAPTER