What is the history of negative numbers?

Answer 1

Although the first set of rules for dealing with negative numbers was stated in the 7th century by the Indian mathematician Brahmagupta, in 1758 the British mathematician Francis Maseres was claiming that negative numbers "... darken the very whole doctrines of the equations and make dark of the things which are in their nature excessively obvious and simple" . In 200 BC the Chinese number rod system represented positive numbers in Red and Negative numbers in black. These were used for commercial and tax calculations where the black cancelled out the red. The amount sold was positive and the amount spent in purchasing something was negative so a money balance was positive, and a negative.