WebMath: standard notation for negative numbers?

[Pam Bishop]

Is there an international standard in notation for negative numbers?  One 
enquirer has asked:

"Personally, I have been brought up differentiating between 'negative seven' 
and 'subtract seven' through the former being a 'raised' sign compared with the 
subtraction sign.  However, is this 'standard' world-wide or is there no agreed 
standard?  I note on several web sites that often a raised sign is not used for 
'negative' and a 'subtraction' sign is used instead.  However, I don't know 
whether that is because that is standard in that country or whether they are 
just being 'lazy' (also, of course, the issue of computers may make people not 
bother using a raised sign as it is not as easy to produce on a computer as a 
standard subtraction sign).  Of course, it may well be the case that there is 
no standard at all."

Comments welcome - Pam






===============================================================

Pam Bishop, Assistant Director
LTSN Maths, Stats & OR Network   
School of Mathematics and Statistics    p.bishop at bham.ac.uk
The University of Birmingham            tel 0121-414 4800
Birmingham  B15 2TT                     fax 0121-414 3389
                                                             
The Maths, Stats & OR Network is part of the Learning and Teaching 
Support Network, which provides discipline-based support for 
learning and teaching in UK universities.
 
More information can be found at http://ltsn.mathstore.ac.uk
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