![]() And that’s what’s going on when you think of zero as positive or negative. ![]() The “vector” (arrow in a direction) that has length zero can technically be pointing in any direction. This is more of a direction than a positive or negative sign. So if you owe them nothing, don’t you have a negative zero dollars? If you owe someone $3, then you can say you have negative 3 dollars. Indeed if a kid doesn’t owe his sister anything, that’s a positive feeling. But zero feels positive and negative, sometimes! Therefore, zero needs to be in a class by himself. Like this:īut we determined that zero was positive! Take the rule, “When multiplying, if the signs are different, the result is negative.” So then (positive) zero times negative 3 is (negative) zero. So let’s say 0 is positive, just for the minute. In math, sometimes, we do things because if we didn’t, they’d mess everything else up. But you might not want to when you see this… You can order imaginary and complex numbers, but you have to do it without labeling them as positive or negative. Notice I wrote “All real numbers can be divided into three categories.” Imaginary and complex numbers can’t be classified this way. With so many other numbers to be positive and negative, zero’s truly in a class by himself. This is one of the reasons zero can be forgotten in all this mix. ![]() But actually, all real numbers can be divided into three categories: positive, negative and zero. ![]()
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