I go to an apple store and order minus five apples. The store owner hands me a bag of something and i go home. I open the bag and dump out the contents. What comes out of the bag? If it's nothing, shouldn't the apple guy have to refund my money or should he have paid ME for the minus apples, and why didn't i order 100 minus apples thereby making it a capitalist's dream?
Originally posted by smw6869 I go to an apple store and order minus five apples. The store owner hands me a bag of something and i go home. I open the bag and dump out the contents. What comes out of the bag? If it's nothing, shouldn't the apple guy have to refund my money or should he have paid ME for the minus apples, and why didn't i order 100 minus apples thereby making it a capitalist's dream?
Granny
It's a bag of money.
No - it's empty. He's waiting for you to bring him the apples. The bag is so you can bring the apples back with you.
Originally posted by TheMaster37 Bank people inventing negative numbers? Possible, but I think it more likely that mathematicians needed negative to get inverses under addition.
From the beginning not even the mathematicians didn't like negative numbers. Some didn't even accept the existence of them. They thought of negative numbers as positive with a certain property only. "Negative number of apples? Rubbish!"
Even the bankers and economists didn't like negative numbers, therefore we have something, even today, that is called 'double Italian book-keeping. Instead of counting with negative numbers they summed the positive amounts separately and called it debit, and summed the negative amounts and called it credit. No need for the minus sign. Then debit and credit should be equal, if not ... you know.
The invention of negative numbers is a great leap forward, beginning with the economists and bankers, followed by mathematicians who gave a mathematical study of them.
Originally posted by TheMaster37 Bank people inventing negative numbers? Possible, but I think it more likely that mathematicians needed negative to get inverses under addition.
That level of formality in maths wasn't invented until later.
Although according to Wikipedia, the concept of negative numbers had existed quite a long time in the East before western bankers started using them. Again, often for representing debts.
Originally posted by mtthw That level of formality in maths wasn't required until later.
Although according to Wikipedia, the concept of negative numbers had existed quite a long time in the East before western bankers started using them. Again, often for representing debts.
Originally posted by AThousandYoung It's a bag of money.
No - it's empty. He's waiting for you to bring him the apples. The bag is so you can bring the apples back with you.
Let's get down to the nitty gritty. Can Granny, somehow, use this negative stuff to screw the store owner and get Free money for myself. Then i wouldn't have to work. Oh! isn't that what bankers do every day?
Originally posted by smw6869 Let's get down to the nitty gritty. Can Granny, somehow, use this negative stuff to screw the store owner and get Free money for myself. Then i wouldn't have to work. Oh! isn't that what bankers do every day?
Granny
Sort of. It's called not paying your credit card bill.
Originally posted by smw6869 I go to an apple store and order minus five apples. The store owner hands me a bag of something and i go home. I open the bag and dump out the contents. What comes out of the bag? If it's nothing, shouldn't the apple guy have to refund my money or should he have paid ME for the minus apples, and why didn't i order 100 minus apples thereby making it a capitalist's dream?
Granny
So you sold him 5 apples and he put the moolah in the bag, what's the big deal about that? You didn't order a minus 100 apples because you only had 5 total.
Originally posted by smw6869 I go to an apple store and order minus five apples. The store owner hands me a bag of something and i go home. I open the bag and dump out the contents. What comes out of the bag? If it's nothing, shouldn't the apple guy have to refund my money or should he have paid ME for the minus apples, and why didn't i order 100 minus apples thereby making it a capitalist's dream?
Granny
How much did you pay for these minus five apples? Minus 2 dollars?
Originally posted by sonhouse So you sold him 5 apples and he put the moolah in the bag, what's the big deal about that? You didn't order a minus 100 apples because you only had 5 total.
The problem is that i didn't have 5 apples to sell.