Something Less Than

Nothing?
Negative Numbers
By: Rebecca Krumrine and
Kristina Yost
 Introduction

 Negativenumbers were not generally

accepted until a few hundred years
ago.

 Negativenumbers first appeared

when people began to solve
equations.
 Lets try a problem…

Iam 18 years old and my sister is 11.

When will I be exactly twice as old as
my sister?

 How would you react to that answer if

you did not know about negative
numbers?
 Main Topics
 Development of concepts of negative
numbers in…
 China
 Greece
 India
 Middle East
 Europe
 China 100BCE – 50BCE
 Inthe “Nine Chapters of Mathematical Art”
they used red rods as positive coefficients
and black rods for negative coefficients to
explain methods for finding area of figures.
 The Nine Chapters also included rules for
dealing with negative numbers.
 Greece 570BCE – 300BCE

 Greeks ignored negative numbers

completely.
 Aristotle made a distinction between
numbers and magnitude, but gave no
indications of the concept of negative
numbers.
 Euclid continued this distinction in his
work Elements.
 Greece 3rd century CE

 Diophantus did not deal with negative

numbers but he was aware of rules for
multiplying with the minus and solving
equations.
 In book V of his Arithmetica, he
encounters the equation 4x+20 = 4
 He believes that this problem is absurd,
since to him 4x + 20 meant adding
something to 20 to equal 4.
 India 7th century CE

 Brahmagupta recognized and worked with

negative numbers.
 Positive numbers were possessions and negative
numbers were debts
 Stated rules for adding, subtracting,
multiplying, and dividing negative numbers in
his work Correct Astronomical System of
Brahma.
 Expanded on Diophantus concepts of the
quadratic equations (ax2 + bx = c, bx + c =
ax2, ax2 + c = bx) using negative numbers
forming the general form of the quadratic
equations.
 India 12th century CE
 Bhaskara gives negative roots, but rejects
the negative root since it was
inappropriate in the context of the
problem.
 “…For people have no clear understanding in
the case of a negative quantity”
 Middle East 9th century CE
 Arabs were familiar with negative numbers
from the work of India mathematicians, but
they rejected them.
 Muhammad Ibn Musa Al-Khqarizimi did not use
negative numbers or negative coefficients in his
two books.
 Knew how to expand products such as
(x – a)(x – b), but they only used this concept
when the problems involved subtractions
whose answers are positive.
 Europe 16th Century
 Negative numbers were still being ignored
and considered as “fictitious solutions.”
 Mathematicians of this time still resisted
negative numbers and thought of them as
“fictitious” or “absurd.”
 Some of the mathematicians of this time
were:
 Cardano from Italy
 Stifel from Germany
 Viete from France
 Europe 17th Century
 Negative numbers started to become
accepted.
 Along with the acceptance, came the
realization of problems with negative
numbers.
 I.e. square roots of negatives
 Rene Descartes partially accepted
these numbers.
 Question:

 When taking the square root of a

negative number, we refer to the
result as….?
 IMAGINARY!!
 ReneDescartes was the mathematician
who called these results imaginary!
 17th century continued…
 Many mathematicians who started
accepting negatives didn’t know where
they belonged in relation to positives.
 One math guy, John Wallis, thought that
negatives were larger than infinity.
 IsaacNewton wrote a book in 1707
called Universal Arithmetick. In this
book he states, “Quantities are either
Affirmative or greater than nothing, or
Negative, or less than nothing.”
 Questions for thought…

 How can a quantity of something be

negative and less than nothing?

 Can you have a negative quantity of

books, food, clothing, or money?

 Itwas hard for people to grasp the

concept of negative numbers being
debt.
 Europe Middle 18th century

 Negatives are officially accepted as real

numbers!!
 Euler was fine with negatives during the
writing of his book Elements of Algebra.
 Even though negative numbers were known
and used, it was common for people to still
ignore them as results to equation systems.
 It was still common practice to ignore a
negative results in any system of equations.
 Europe 19th century
 Negatives finally become important
enough to not be ignored.
 The works of Gauss, Galois, and
Abel really had a big impact on
equation systems with negative
results.
 Doubts of negative numbers finally
disappear.
 Summary
 Although negative numbers were
“discovered” in BCE, negative numbers
were not completely accepted until the
1800’s.
 Still, generally, mathematicians used
negative numbers in computations, but did
not understand the concept of them.
 Timeline
 4th century BCE- Aristotle made a distinction
between numbers and magnitude.
 100 BCE- In the Nine Chapters of Mathematical
Art, the Chinese used negative numbers in
solving systems of equations.
 3rd century CE- Diophantus solved equations with
negative numbers in Arithmetica, but then
rejected the equation itself.
 7th century CE- Indians used negative numbers
to represent debt.
 9th century CE – Arabs were familiar with
negative numbers, but rejected them.
 12th century CE- Bhaskara (Indian) gives
negative roots for quadratic equations, but rejects
the roots because people do not approve of
negative roots.
 Timeline continued…
 16th Century CE- European Mathematicians
thought of negative numbers as “fictitious” or
“absurd.”
 17th Century CE- Rene Descartes claims the
result of negative square roots as “imaginary.”
 18th Century CE- Negatives start to become
accepted in Europe even though they are still
commonly ignored.
 19th Century CE- Doubts of negative numbers
finally disappear and negatives are known
now as real numbers.
 References
 Berlinghoff, William P. , and Fernando Q. Gouvea.
Math through the Ages A Gentle History for Teachers
and Others. 1st ed. Farmington, Maine: Oxton House
Publishers, 2002.
 Katz, Victor J.. A History of Mathematics. New York:
Pearson/Addison Wesley, 2004.
 Negative and non-negative numbers." Wikipedia.
2006. 7 Sep 2006
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_numbers>.
 "Number." Wikipedia. 2006. 7 Sep 2006
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number>.
 Smith, Martha K.. "History of Negative Numbers."
University of Texas at Austin. 19 Feb 2001. 9 Sep
2006
<http://www.ma.utexas.edu/users/mks/326K/Negnos.
html>.