Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Why only -2-1 0 +1 +2

........Our mind, after milion years of experiencing the nature, reasons that if something exists, its opposite must exist as well. If zero has a "front" line along which numbers are counted as 0 1 2 3 ..., then why not having a "back" side too? That is intutive. Well, alright. Lets asuume there are things on the back side of zero, but how can we write and even call them? Another intuition pops up in the incredible minds: Well, since they are in the "opposite side", and given that all opposite forces in the nature appear to have balanced out each other, lets consider the property that they together with the "front-sided" number come to a balance; In other words, as the concept of plus was already invented clearly, one plus X equals zero. And that's exactly the defination of X, the negative numbers, which the "imaginary" mind of our mathematicions has made up. Simple intution. And there is no question why they have proved very handy in solving the problems in a lot of applications; That is because the intution is already based on our experiencing the nature and thus fits well with the way nature works.

It does seem as intuitive, thu, to expect a "left" and a "right" side for zero too. but this imagination only occurs to more prepared and intelligent minds: what if, inspired by the spherical image of a 3D world, we consider all kinds of radial sides for zero, each with different properties? Imaginary axis is only one especial one, perpendicular to the real line, among all the countless other ones...........

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