Transcription of What’s so Baffling About Negative Numbers? – a Cross ...
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What’s so Baffling About Negative Numbers? – a Cross ...
What s so Baffling About NegativeNumbers? a Cross -CulturalComparisonDavid MumfordI was flabbergasted when I first read Augustus De Morgan s writings About negativenumbers1. For example, in thePenny Cyclopediaof 1843, to which he contributedmany articles, he wrote in the articleNegative and Impossible Quantities:It is not our intention to follow the earlier algebraists through their different usesof Negative numbers. These creations of algebra retained their existence, in theface of the obvious deficiency of rational explanation whichcharacterized everyattempt at their fact, he spent much of his life, first showing how equationswith these meaninglessnegative numbers could be reworked so as to assert honest facts involving onlypositive numbers and, later, working slowly towards a definition of abstract ringsand fields, the ideas which he felt were the only way to build a fully satisfactorytheory of Negative the other hand, every school child today is taught in fourth and fifth gradeabout Negative numbers and how to do arithmetic with them.
What’s so Baffling About Negative Numbers? 115 been first relevant. I would suggest that the story of negativ e numbers is a prime example of this effect.3 ...
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