I teach maths and one of the analogies is use is watching a film of someone walking forwards and backwards. If you play the film forwards (multiplying by positive), you can see the person walking forwards and backwards as normal. If you play the film backwards (multiplying by negative) you see the opposite. So multiplying by negative reverses whatever was happening before. Hard to put into words but the visuals (hopefully) seem to explain it well enough.
This is basically the staple way of explaining the topic in my country. It was a very bizzare concept for 13 year old me so it made understanding it a lot easier.
Sorry for the question, but where are you from? I learned this with my mother, so I don’t know if it’s something common here (Brazil) or something that she picked from her Polish or Italian relatives.
That’s surprisingly accurate, as people here are highlighting (it makes geometrical sense when dealing with complex numbers).
My nephew once asked me this question. The way that I explained it was like this:
It’s a different analogy but it makes intuitive sense, even for kids. And it works nice as mnemonic too.
I teach maths and one of the analogies is use is watching a film of someone walking forwards and backwards. If you play the film forwards (multiplying by positive), you can see the person walking forwards and backwards as normal. If you play the film backwards (multiplying by negative) you see the opposite. So multiplying by negative reverses whatever was happening before. Hard to put into words but the visuals (hopefully) seem to explain it well enough.
Its good maths but terrible realpolitick.
Realpolitik is terrible no matter what.
My math teacher in middle school explained it with love/hate, but same set up.
If you hate to love you’re a hater If you love to hate you’re a hater
I mean, you can negotiate a peace agreement and free trade deals, you don’t have to be enemies.
This is basically the staple way of explaining the topic in my country. It was a very bizzare concept for 13 year old me so it made understanding it a lot easier.
Sorry for the question, but where are you from? I learned this with my mother, so I don’t know if it’s something common here (Brazil) or something that she picked from her Polish or Italian relatives.