Timeline for Why don’t American school textbooks recognize negative numbers as whole numbers?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
6 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Oct 7, 2020 at 8:54 | comment | added | DBS | @hobbs Not from a physical perspective (obviously negative "things" don't exist), but from a mathematical description of the events, the minus is the act of losing the apple. But as the answers are pointing out, the term "whole" seems to be used differently per country, so I guess there's no point arguing about it, haha. | |
| Oct 6, 2020 at 23:15 | comment | added | hobbs | @DBS you had 3, then you had 2. You never had -1. | |
| Oct 5, 2020 at 14:30 | comment | added | Don Branson | @Peter-ReinstateMonica Yeah, but not an integer cow, just a fraction of one. ;) | |
| Oct 5, 2020 at 9:46 | comment | added | Peter - Reinstate Monica | "integer" is Latin for "whole number" ;-). Perhaps surprisingly, two words can refer to the same thing in natural languages. English specifically has a host of Romantic synonyms for Celtic/Germanic ones. You are eating cow when you are eating beef. | |
| Oct 5, 2020 at 9:14 | comment | added | DBS | Suggesting you cannot have a negative "whole" seems to go against the semantic meaning of the word. I have 3 apples, I give 1 away, now I have 1 less apple than I had before (-1 whole apple) | |
| Oct 5, 2020 at 4:45 | history | answered | Acccumulation | CC BY-SA 4.0 |