Talk:Negative numbers

Not even true
I clearly "grasp" the concept. Just because I disagree doesn't mean you guys have to act like I'm the example of every bad idea on the Internet. You even secretly prove me right in this post. You admit that negative numbers are basically for "convenience," and I agree. Convenience at the expense of truth. And in the case of debt to China, liberty. Notedscholar (talk) 14:52, 13 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Corrected! - David Gerard (talk) 15:01, 13 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Notedscholar (talk) 01:30, 14 June 2010 (UTC)


 * I had one hundred pounds in my bank account. I spent one hundred and fifty pounds on new hi-fi equipment using my debit card. How much money do I have in my bank account?


 * Negative numbers are very real in a very real world. Jack Hughes (talk) 17:34, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I've been ploughing through a few papers and something just came to my attention. In the scalar couplings of parahydrogen derived spin-pairs, the coupling constant (J) is expressed in negative numbers. The unit being Hertz. Now, it's difficult to imagine negative Hertz, I mean, a negative number of things per second, but the effects are very, very real (the -ve values generate antiphase coupled resonances) so they aren't just convenient formalisms for something - although this is quantum, and thus very fucked up. Coupling constants are also slightly more absolute, so the negative values don't correspond to "less than a specific reference frequency" like with the ppm scale, this also certainly doesn't "conveniently represent debt" either (I don't even think the word "convenient" is right, it's just how it is). I do think there are some merits to Notedscolar's view, you can imagine negative numbers as merely being normal positive numbers multiplied by "-1" to represent debt in the same way that complex numbers are normal positive numbers multiplied by i. But this sort of reasoning only applies to cardinality and to try and extend it as a claim of "them not being truth" or whatever is what is wrong. 14:51, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Unless you're suggesting quantum woo, no point in going all scientific to someone who strongly disagrees about negative numbers. It's easier to suggest developing a number system without negative numbers - that can be used as far as researching, manufacturing, and testing modern computers that are used to express the fact that negative numbers don't exist. --Sigma 7 (talk) 14:52, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Mission
Mmh hmm. Тy JFBAA 13:37, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
 * It's on mission. Notedscholar is a negative-number denialist. Source. Plus there's the whole incident the article mentions with those lotto tickets and innumerate people. The Heidelberg Kid (talk) 14:00, 4 November 2012 (UTC)