SME 430 NEGATIVE NUMBERS 02/02/10

Brief History 1

Although the first set of rules for dealing with negative numbers was stated in the 7th century by the
Indian mathematician Brahmagupta, it is surprising that in 1758 the British mathematician Francis Maseres
was claiming that negative numbers
"... darken the very whole doctrines of the equations and make dark of the things which are in their nature excessively
obvious and simple" .
It was not until the 19th century when British mathematicians like De Morgan, Peacock, and others,
began to investigate the 'laws of arithmetic' in terms of logical definitions that the problem of negative
numbers was finally sorted out.

However, there were references to negative numbers far earlier...

In 200 BCE the Chinese number rod system represented positive

numbers in Red and Negative numbers in black. These were used for
commercial and tax calculations where the black cancelled out the red.
The amount sold was positive (because of receiving money) and the
amount spent in purchasing something was negative (because of paying
out); so a money balance was positive, and a deficit negative.

The concept also appeared in Astronomy where the ideas of 'strong' and 'weak' were used for
approximating a number from above or below. For example approaching 5 from above means for example,
starting with 5.2 you can find better approximations 5.1, 5.05, 5.025. Thus 5.025 was called a 'strong'
approximation and a number like 4.9 'weak'. So 'strong' numbers were called positive and 'weak' numbers
negative.
In India , negative numbers did not appear until about 620 CE in the work of Brahmagupta (598 -
670) who used the ideas of 'fortunes' and 'debts' for positive and negative. By this time a system based on
place-value was established in India, with zero being used in the Indian number sytem. Brahmagupta used a
special sign for negatives and stated the rules for dealing with positive and negative quantities as follows:

A debt minus zero is a debt. The product of zero multiplied by zero is zero.
A fortune minus zero is a fortune. The product or quotient of two fortunes is one fortune.
. Zero minus zero is a zero. The product or quotient of two debts is ne fortune.
A debt subtracted from zero is a fortune The product or quotient of a debt and a fortune is a debt.
A fortune subtracted from zero is a debt. The product or quotient of a fortune and a debt is a debt.  
The
           product
                       of      zero
               multiplied
                               by
         a    debt
               or
  fortune is zero.
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 Taken  from  http://nrich.maths.org/5961  
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The conflict between geometry and algebra

The ancient Greeks did not really address the problem of negative numbers, because their
mathematics was founded on geometrical ideas. Lengths, areas, and volumes resulting from geometrical
constructions necessarily all had to be positive. Their proofs consisted of logical arguments based on the idea
of magnitude. Magnitudes were represented by a line or an area, and not by a number (like 4.3 metres or 26.5
cubic centimetres). In this way they could deal with 'awkward' numbers like square roots by representing
them as a line. For example, you can draw the diagonal of a square without having to measure it.
About 300 CE, the Alexandrian mathematician Diophantus (200 - c.284 CE) wrote his Arithmetica , a
collection of problems where he developed a series of symbols to represent the 'unknown' in a problem, and
powers of numbers. He dealt with what we now call linear and quadratic equations. In one problem
Diophantus wrote the equivalent of 4 = 4x + 20 which would give a negative result, and he called this result
'absurd'.
In the 9th century in Baghdad Al - Khwarizmi (c.780 - c.850 CE) presented six standard forms for linear
or quadratic equations and produced solutions using algebraic methods and geometrical diagrams. In his
algebraic methods he acknowledged that he derived ideas from the work of Brahmagupta and therefore was
happy with the notion of negative numbers. However, his geometrical models (based on the work of Greek
mathematicians) persuaded him that negative results were meaningless (how can you have a negative square?).
In a separate treatise on the laws of inheritance, Al-Khwarizmi represents negative quantities as debts.
In the 10th century Abul -Wafa (940-998 CE) used negative numbers to represent a debt in his work on
'what is necessary from the science of arithmetic for scribes and businessmen? This seems to be the only
place where negative numbers have been found in medieval Arabic mathematics. Abul-Wafa gives a general
rule and gives a special case where subtraction of 5 from 3 gives a "debt" of 2. He then multiples this by 10 to
obtain a "debt" of 20, which when added to a 'fortune' of 35 gives 15.

In the 12th century Al - Samawal (1130 - 1180) had produced an algebra where he stated that:

• if we subtract a positive number from an 'empty power', the same negative number remains,
• if we subtract the negative number from an 'empty power', the same positive number remains,
• the product of a negative number by a positive number is negative, and by a negative number is
positive.

Negative numbers did not begin to appear in Europe until the 15th century when scholars began to study
and translate the ancient texts that had been recovered from Islamic and Byzantine sources. This began a
process of building on ideas that had gone before, and the major spur to the development in mathematics
was the problem of solving quadratic and cubic equations.

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Solving equations

The story of the solution of equations begins in Italy in the 16th century. This story is full of intrigue
and deception because methods of solution were kept secret. The issue which caused most consternation at

the time was the meaning of −1 . In fact, Cardano (1501 - 1576) in his Ars Magna of 1545 had to solve a

problem where −15 appeared. Cardano found a sensible answer by working through the algorithm, but
he called these numbers 'ficticious' because not only did they disappear during the calculation, but they did
not seem to have any real meaning. However, by 1572, the Italian engineer, Bombelli (1526 - 1572) had
provided the correct rules for working with these 'imaginary' numbers.

In the 17th and 18th century, while they might not have been comfortable with their 'meaning' many
mathematicians were routinely working with negative and imaginary numbers in the theory of equations and
in the development of the calculus.

The English mathematician, John Wallis (1616 - 1703) is credited with giving some meaning to
negative numbers by inventing the number line, and in the early 18th century a controversy ensued between
Leibniz, Johan Bernoulli, Euler and d'Alembert about whether log(−x) was the same as Log(x).

Clairaut (1713-1765), also, on this subject, give his rules, in his " Elements of algebra " of 1746:

" It will be asked perhaps if one can add negatives with positives, or rather if one can say that one adds the negatives.
With what I answer that this expression is exact when one does not confuse to add with increasing. That two person for example
join their fortune, whatever they are, I say that that is to add their good, that one has some debts and some real goods, if the debt
exceeds the goods, he will owe only negative, and the junction of his fortune with that of the first one decrease the goods of this one,
so that the sum itself will be, or less than what the first had, or even entirely negative "

By the beginning of the 19th century Caspar Wessel (1745 - 1818) and Jean Argand (1768 - 1822) had
produced different mathematical representations of 'imaginary' numbers, and around the same time Augustus
De Morgan (1806 - 1871), George Peacock (1791 - 1858) William Hamilton (1805 - 1865) and others began
to work on the 'logic'of arithmetic and algebra and a clearer definition of negative numbers, imaginary
quantities, and the nature of the operations on them began to emerge.

Negative numbers and imaginaries are now built into the mathematical models of the physical world
of science, engineering and the commercial world. There are many applications of negative numbers today in
banking, commodity markets, electrical engineering, and anywhere we use a frame of reference as in
coordinate geometry, or relativity theory.

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Brain Storming
1. Think about the following quotes and try to make a mathematical argument for both cases.

“I know people who cannot understand that when you subtract four from zero what is left is zero.”
Blaise Pascal
“How much is (+3) + (-3)? Two student opinions.
Tim: … is this just +3-3? Well, -3, this must be subtracted from +3, so that we get zero.
Teacher: This is one line of reasoning. Are there other? Nico?
Nico: That +3 come out. Because when we take +3+0 we also get +3, and -3 is even less than zero.2”

a. How would you explain the reasoning used in Pascal’s quote?

In terms of tangable objects, you can’t have less than zero because you can’t have anything less than
nothing. Thus, in that case, you still have zero.

b. How would you explain Nico’s reasoning?

Same as Pascal’s  anything less than zero is still zero, thus you aren’t subtracting anything.

2. What is misleading in the following reasoning?

French writer Stendhal expressed his distress in respect to the rule of the signs in its
autobiographical novel: Life of Henri Brulard ", in 1835.3

My great misfortune was this figure:

Let us suppose that RP is the line which separates the positives from the negatives, all that is above is positive, as negative all that
is below; how, by taking the square B as many times as there are units in square A, can I manage to make change side the
square C?

And, while following an awkward comparison that the supremely slow accent from Grenoble of Mr. Chabert made still more
awkward, let us suppose that the negative quantities are the debts of a man, how by multiplying 10 000 francs of debt by 500
francs, this man will have or manage to get a fortune of 5 000 000, five million francs?

                                                                                                                         
2
  Hefender-­‐Hebeker,   L.   1991,   Negative   numbers:   Obstacles   in   their   evolution   from   intuitive   to   intellectual  
constructs.  For  the  Learning  of  Mathematics,  11(1),  p.  26-­‐32.  
3
 Taken  from  http://www.gobiernodecanarias.org/educacion/3/Usrn/penelope/uk_confboye.htm.  
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The Disco Game4
A crowd of disco-dancers arriving at or leaving by a number of gates needs to be recorded to
control over-crowding. Each gate is controlled by a child, who are asked to keep track of the
numbers of people going in and out using a double abacus, which has two wires with yellow beads
for going out and blue beads for going in. Blue card with 4 on it means 4 people went in.
Occasionally the children are required to report their gate to a controller who records the total
scores on the controller's abacus, in order to decide if the room is too full and must close.
We’ll change the game a little bit.
Instead of abacus use chip modeling corresponding to in’s and out’s. Draw chips for each case and
find out number of people coming in and out.
a.
7   3  
Chip Model:

Number Sentence:

2   4   9  
b.
Chip Model:

Number Sentence:

8   15   2  
c.
Chip Model:

Number Sentence:

                                                                                                                         
4
Linchevski, L. & Williams, J. (1999). Using intuition from everyday life in 'filling' the gap in children's
extension of their number concept to include the negative numbers. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 39(3),
pp. 131-147.
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d. If the three cases presented above represents the last half an hour what is the total number of
people in half an hour?
Hops on the Number Line
Representing number on the number line took a long time. We could use number line to model
operations on integers. Because it is hard we’ll model multiplication. Consider being positive or
negative indicates the directions you need to go on number line. There are two directions. We can
say right or left or positive and negative.

Left  or  Negative   Right  or  Positive  

-­‐6   -­‐5   -­‐4   -­‐3   -­‐2   -­‐1   0   1   2   3   4   5   6  

(-2) x (3) = ?
The first number indicates the number of hops and the second number indicates how much you
should go in each hop.
(- )sign in front of two indicates we need to turn to negative side. Two hops and three steps in each
hop.

Left  or  Negative   Right  or  Positive  

-­‐6   -­‐5   -­‐4   -­‐3   -­‐2   -­‐1   0   1   2   3   4   5   6  

Show the following multiplications on number line.

a. (2) x (4)

b. (5) x (-3)

c. (-3)x (-4)

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Task

Think of a model for explaining the need for and existence of negative numbers.
How well your model explains concept of negative numbers and operations with negative numbers.
What are the limitations of your model? Are there any points that your model may be misleading in
explaining negative numbers?

Discussion
How much can we make mathematics concrete to our students?

What may be possible obstacles if we are heavily dependent of concrete representations of

mathematical ideas? Think about geometric representation of numbers and resistance towards
negative numbers.

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