Finding actual "negative"

Greetings!

One Sunday afternoon. As i was just going into the blissful state where one does nothing, expects nothing and expresses only monosyllables...

"Baba, tell me... tell me..." my 9 years old was tugging on ...

"Huh?" I asked. 

 "What are negative numbers?" she at once grabbed the opportunity.

"Any number less than zero is a negative number", i mustered a hasty answer.

 "What?" exclaimed the baffled child... "How can there be anything less than zero? If I don't have a chocolate means I have zero chocolate. Yes or No?" 

 "Yeah... you are right."  I was hoping to drift in nothingness by conceding beforehand

 "Yes... or... No... ?" She meant business.

 "Umm... yes i guess" I grudgingly pushed the sweet sleep back

 "Then what is a negative number?" She persisted.

 "It is on left side of number line from zero" I attempted, "I know that baba... what does it mean actually?" She rolled her eyes....

 "I guess, it is just an imaginary thing so that we can do better math" I said... wondering what it meant. 

 "Okay..." she said and went off to do some of the imaginary math stuff.


But this conversation ended the possibility of sleep and set a thought rolling...

 What if all negatives in math and life are imaginary? If much ado about nothing is useless then any ado about negatives is foolishness? If negativity is imaginary problem then the solution too has to be imaginary!

 Is "negative" actual? If not then why suffer it "actually"?

 Sincerely Mine!
Anand P Kulkarni

Comments

mohitv said…
Great article 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

Thursday, April 25, 2019
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