Minus-One
It took a long time for
the notion of minus to make its appearance on the scene.
There were 5 people in the room, 7 leave, how many have to enter before
the room is empty.
That is why it was a difficult notion. Also the Greeks were geometers
and as such measures were lengths so there was no need
for negative numbers.
As recently as the 18th century, Leonhard Euler believed
that negative numbers were greater than infinity, and it was common
practice to ignore any negative results returned by equations on the
assumption that they were meaningless.
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