Negative Math How Mathematical Rules Can Be Positively
Alberto A. Martínez (Author)
A student in class asks the math teacher: "Shouldn't minus times minus make minus?" Teachers soon convince most students that it does not. Yet the innocent question brings with it a germ of mathematical creativity. What happens if we encourage that thought, odd and ungrounded though it may seem? Few books in the field of mathematics encourage such
eBook, English, Jan. 2014
Princeton University Press Two Rivers Distribution [Distributor], Princeton, Jackson, Jan. 2014
College Audience
1 online resource
9780691133911, 0691133913
1175620969
Figures ix Chapter 1: Introduction 1 Chapter 2: The Problem 10 Chapter 3: History: Much Ado About Less than Nothing 18 The Search for Evident Meaning 36 Chapter 4: History: Meaningful and Meaningless Expressions 43 Impossible Numbers? 66 Chapter 5: History: Making Radically New Mathematics 80 From Hindsight to Creativity 104 Chapter 6: Math Is Rather Flexible 110 Sometimes -1 Is Greater than Zero 112 Traditional Complications 115 Can Minus Times Minus Be Minus? 131 Unity in Mathematics 166 Chapter 7: Making a Meaningful Math 174 Finding Meaning 175 Designing Numbers and Operations 186 Physical Mathematics? 220 Notes 235 Further Reading 249 Acknowledgments 259 Index 261