^^Numeri relativi. Storia.

 

1572 Algebra by Bombelli Rafael (1526-1572)

Bombelli gave a comprehensive account of the algebra known at the time.

He was the first European to write down the way of performing computations with negative numbers.

From the text:

  1. Plus times plus makes plus
  2. Minus times minus makes plus
  3. Plus times minus makes minus
  4. Minus times plus makes minus
     
  5. Plus 8 times plus 8 makes plus 64
  6. Minus 5 times minus 6 makes plus 30
  7. Minus 4 times plus 5 makes minus 20
  8. Plus 5 times minus 4 makes minus 20

 

As was intended, Bombelli used simple language as can be seen above so that anybody could understand it. But at the same time, he was thorough.

ref: wp/Rafael_Bombelli

 

 

En 1770, Euler publia en allemand (le latin est de plus en plus révolu dans les publications scientifiques) une Introduction complète à l'algèbre (Vollständige Einleitung zur Algebra) où l'on peut considérer que, malgré quelques rebelles, tout sera dit quant aux nombres négatifs et à leur statut de véritable nombre, statut conforté et définitivement entériné avec Gauss (le qualificatif semble apparaître pour la première fois chez Jean de Beaugrand en 1638).

ref: http://serge.mehl.free.fr/chrono/Euler.html#Nbrs

 

As recently as the 18th century, it was common practice to ignore any negative results returned by equations on the assumption that they were meaningless, just as René Descartes did with negative solutions in a Cartesian coordinate system.

ref: wp/Negative_number#History