A Negative Times a Negative Makes a Positive Number
In high school we were introduced to negative numbers. Why high school? Why not earlier? Because we cannot picture in our minds what a negative number is. We know what positive numbers are. For instance, if we have three apples and someone gives us four more apples, we know we now have seven apples. And as to multiplication, if we have three groups of four three apples each, we know we have 12 apples. But can you visualize what a negative apple might be? How can you demonstrate negative times negative makes positive? Pure Numbers Forget units for the moment. We will concentrate on pure numbers. In the above example, the four groups of three apples becomes simply 4(3) = 12. Suppose, instead of 4(3) we make on of the…