Negative!

Ok here is a question I asked myself recently. How is it possible to have a negative in reality? Information is not a physical thing, information is a collection of facts or data, therefore information is not an object of reality. So how do you have a negative object?

How do I have negative 3 apples, starting from 0 apples? You can't say, "I give you 3 apples, then take them away, and you are now -3 apples" because that is information.

So I was thinking, everything is either a 1 or a 0, how the binary code was created. Everything either is or is not. There is no beyond non-existing, or "-x".

But then I thought to myself, what if the 1 was in reality a -1? What if how we choose to see something can be -1 or 0? Some consider space or "0" to be a thing. Without 0, within what would a 1 exist? Space-Time is in fact a thing, it can be examined frame by frame, viewing events that happened in that space over a period of time. So what if the apple or "1" was in fact taking away space from Space-Time by existing? That would make the apple a -1 from the Space-Time's perspective. Does this mean space is a 1? Does that mean everything is either a 1 or -1 and no 0?

If I had 3 apples, that means those 3 apples are negativing the void by existing, which makes them -3 apples.

LOL HAAAAAAAXXXX!!!!!!!

Math only uses negative to indicate negation, thus "negative". It means "the opposite of" and not somehow "not existing more than 0". In the real world there really aren't negative things (unless you count the hypothetical negative energy and matter, but fuck that) Getting an answer of -3 apples is inapplicable in real life, because you can only take away the amount of apples that were there in the first place.

In short you are correct that there really aren't such things as negative quantities in real life, just like there aren't really imaginary numbers.  It's just a tool for figuring things out.

Math is not supposed to 'exist'. Simply because you can have three apples doesn't mean the actual number 3 exists in reality (it can't, because it's a concept). Numbers, along with words, are just a way to describe reality. Jesus Fucking Christ, people.

I'd say the most aplicible use of negitive numbers is in a... damn, can't remember the exact name. It's a graph with four quadrants. 0,0 would be dead center. 1,1 would be one interval to the right and one interval up.

>>1 Haha, that's what they have 'natural numbers' for (ie 1, 2, 3, ...). Maths is a language, and just like in other languages, like english, you can talk about things that don't exist in the real world. When we use mathematics, everything doesn't have to relate to something you can do with apples.

Negative numbers exist. The fact non-science and technology tards don't understand them brought nothing but trouble. Take a look at accounting, for example. Fucking piece of shit, they should let a mathematician redesign that with negative numbers.

>How do I have negative 3 apples, starting from 0 apples? You can't say, "I give you 3 apples, then take them away, and you are now -3 apples" because that is information.

-3 apples describes the operation performed on your quantity of apples, not the amount of apples you have. How is this a problem?


>But then I thought to myself, what if the 1 was in reality a -1? What if how we choose to see something can be -1 or 0? Some consider space or "0" to be a thing. Without 0, within what would a 1 exist? Space-Time is in fact a thing, it can be examined frame by frame, viewing events that happened in that space over a period of time. So what if the apple or "1" was in fact taking away space from Space-Time by existing? That would make the apple a -1 from the Space-Time's perspective. Does this mean space is a 1? Does that mean everything is either a 1 or -1 and no 0?

What the fuck man, lay off the pot. You're just rambling here.

Requesting that Science & Math is renamed to Retarded ramblings by IDIOTS

>>8

Seconded.

Second Seconding.

/sci = /vip with more tl;dr and fun

But I like it that way.

BTW, negative numbers don't exist; see how, say, for 8 bit numbers, -1 is actually 255; -2 = 254, etc., it's just a trick we do to have negative numbers.

How many bits Maths are?

Negative numbers "exist" (or don't exist) just as much as positive numbers. It's all a matter of your reference and how retarded you are. Little retarded? Negative numbers are used. Lotsa retarded? No negative numbers; invent braindead substitutes (see accounting and calendar, for example).

Think about space. It's impossible to make spatial references in the Universe without negative numbers, because the origin of coordinates must be somewhere, and it cannot be infinite because infinite is not a number OH SHI-

Now try figuring out what it means to have an imaginary number of something.  Good luck.

In any case, negative numbers exist as concepts.  Infinity doesn't exist in "reality" either, but it is an immesefuly useful concept.

>>1
if you have three apples
and you owe me 4
that means after giving me the three apples you still owe me one
you have, at that time, -1 apples.


come on people.

>>14
No, dumbdick, you have zero apples.

Not everything has to "exist" in reality, goddammit.

>>13
Space seems to be pretty fucking infinite (matter isn't, but you can always keep moving in one direction in some of the dimensions of string theory).

If something happened 3 days ago, it happened -3 days from now.

>>16
You can always keep moving in one direction on the Earth as well. Doesn't mean its surface is infinite.

>>17
in some of the dimensions

PEANO AXIOM DO YOU USE IT???

>>1
>> But then I thought to myself, what if the 1 was in reality a -1?
Well, that would break multiplication, which is pretty simple to show...
I have two rows of two screws on my desk.  I have four screws.  If we saw everything negative, then I'd really have -two rows of -two screws, giving me four screws which appear to be -four screws.  It doesn't appear to be -four screws so... yea

And in answer to the original question... Im pretty sure there is no such thing as a negative magnitude or negative count.  Historically, negative numbers were originally treated in pretty much the same way we teach elementry students to treat neagative roots nowadays, "NO SOLUTION".

The simplest example in which I can think of where you HAVE to use negation to describe the physical world is motion along 1 dimension.  A ball rolling 1m/s to the right is clearly not the same as a ball rolling 1m/s to the left, so either motion along one direction becomes 'negative', or you attach the names "Left" and "Right" to every speed, in which you have a perfect analogue to the terms "Positive" and "Negative" in every way.

Antimatter.

>>1 must have been in the retard class all his fucking life. Mathematicans don't prove results by pushing apples around a desk. Jesus Haploid Christ

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned this: electric potential, aka voltage. When measuring a voltage source, normally you put the positive to positive and ground to negative. This measures the potential from the positive to ground, thus a positive voltage. However, flip it around (put the ground to positive and positive to negative), you're measuring the potential from ground to positive, hence a negative voltage. Think of it in terms of altitude, it all makes sense in the end.

Negative voltage is most applicable in operational amplifiers, which gives the device a rail voltage to reference to. In some applications, you can trick most opamps to ramp up to either positive or negative voltage, but thats another matter entirely.

Point being: math geeks come up with the language of the science, us actual scientists use it. Negative isn't just a concept to us EEs...

>>23
You're EE too? MY BROTHER!

But yes, negative isn't just some arbitrary bullshit. It's sad how this board is being dragged down by morons like >>1 .

OMG NOW LETS PROVE OUR OWN EXISTENCE SHALL WE??

EEs are not scientists, they are engineers. They use what scientists discover to figure out how to make new technologies with it.

>>26

Fail. Engineers > Scientists, because we're not beholden to you faggots to figure out theory. We can do it on our fucking *own*.