Re: Numbers and math

At 9/21/00 11:01 PM -0400, you wrote:
>On Thu, Sep 21, 2000 at 12:33:05PM -0700, Marcus Smith wrote:
>[snip]
> > Who ever heard of a negative number?  That just means you have a positive
> > number in the other direction.  You don't have -2 bowls, you owe others 2
> > bowls.
>[snip]
>
>I know this is meant as a joke, but HEY, this is a REVOLUTIONARY idea!!
Only sort of a joke.  That post was written from a Telek perspective.  No
numbers higher than 2; no zero; no negatives; no mathematical operations.

That comment on negative numbers -- that's the way I actually do think of
them.  Seems valid to me, since you can't have negative distances, you
can't hold negative amounts, you can't move at negative speeds -- they are
just some abstract place holder to show that things are not going in the
same direction as the focus of your inquiry.  And don't get me started on
imaginary numbers!  ;-)  (Actually, I quite like them -- very fun.)

Must be why I'm a linguist rather than a mathematician.  :-)



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Marcus Smith
AIM:  Anaakoot
"When you lose a language, it's like
dropping a bomb on a museum."
   -- Kenneth Hale
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