Re: Why should -1 multiplied by -1 be plus 1 and not -1

From: >parr\(*> (gniKyruaL_at_tenretnitb.moc)
Date: 08/06/04 

Date: Fri, 6 Aug 2004 09:43:29 +0000 (UTC)

"James Dolan" <jdolan@math-cl-n03.math.ucr.edu> wrote in message
news:cektcc$4jl$1@glue.ucr.edu...

Hi James,

Thanks for taking the trouble to put your approach together.

| below is a sample of the general approach that i'd try in a
situation
| like that. as others have pointed out, though, it's crucial to get
| feedback from the student themself, to answer their particular
| questions and adjust to their particular difficulties; getting
pretend
| feedback from someone who themself had little success in explaining
| things to the student is not an adequate substitute.

I agree. Too artificial.

| ------------------------------------------------------------------- 

---
| in order to understand things like
| "negative 3 times negative 4 = positive twelve
| [Detailed description of highly practical approach snipped]
I like your approach, which is a way of saying I'm sure that 'Gina'
would not have been confused by technicalities and would have been
able to relate to the various things you suggest.  I won't pretend to
know how Gina's intuition would have reacted.  Partly because I
didn't use such an approach myself, and partly because, when I read
it through, there was no 'Gina' (my own intuition as to how she would
have reacted) which accepted nor rejected the key demonstrations and
associated descriptions.
Out of interest, do you get an intuition of how others would react to
something you've just seen?  If so, you will have an idea of the
process I was using to give the pretend feedback.
| ---------------------------------------
| <...>  text-based internet is not such a good
| medium for demonstrating how to respond, <...>
I agree.  The real killer is that an approach has to be presented as
a whole because usenet is not a chatroom.  The process is
more-or-less open loop without all the checks and balances of
face-to-face dialogue.
Thanks again.
I'm calling it a day now this thread has exploded to near 60 posts.
Elsewhere in sci.logic, I sum up what I got out of it.
--
)>==ss$$%PARR(º>   Parr

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