Timeline for Historical roots of the justification for the rule for multiplication of negative numbers
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
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| Nov 11, 2015 at 19:26 | comment | added | Conifold | Viete seems to justify only auxiliary use of negatives. Mumford credits Wallis's treatise as "the first place in Western literature in which the rule of signs is not merely stated but explained so clearly" for negatives as such. In his translation the last passage is:"But to multiply –A by −2 is twice to take away a defect or negative. Now to take away a defect is the same as to supply it; and twice to take away the defect of A is the same as twice to add A or to put 2A" dam.brown.edu/people/mumford/beyond/papers/… (p.137). | |
| Nov 10, 2015 at 14:12 | history | edited | Mauro ALLEGRANZA | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Nov 10, 2015 at 13:24 | history | answered | Mauro ALLEGRANZA | CC BY-SA 3.0 |