The Ground from Which Directed Numbers Grow

Author(s): John Cable

Source: Mathematics in School, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Nov., 1971), pp. 10-12
Published by: The Mathematical Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30210683 .
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The ground from which

grow
directednumbers
by John Cable

1. Most teachers introduce directed numbers by means

of concrete situations, such as temperature scales and
displacements on a line, and I for one believe this
approach to be sound. Indeed, if the usual treatment is
open to criticism, it is because the teacher is in too
much hurry to reach the rules for addition and other
operations and hence leaves the concrete situations too
early. Be that as it may, the purpose of this article is to
examine in some detail some of the concrete situations
and ideas that underlie directed numbers. We may bear
the following points in mind:
(i) these ideas and situations are not merely
into symbolic
launching
pads for the flight
manipulation, but provide some of the contexts to
which directed numbers and their arithmetic are later
to be applied;
(ii) weaker pupils, i.e. the lower part of the total
ability range, may well confine their use of directed
numbers to very elementary applications;
to which we shall draw
(iii) the complexities
attention may perhaps account for some of the
difficulties pupils find;
(iv) it may be that the richness of structure which we
hope to uncover may be worth the conscious attention
of at least the more able pupils.
2. First we may note the existence
negative as well as positive parts.

of SCALES with

-20
- 10
-O
---10

BATTERY

(What happens if you

change the leads over?)

I1

- --c

I 1 0I I

-B

-A

3. Of slightly greater difficulty is the reading of two

such scales simultaneously as with co-ordinates.

+B

+A

+C

5. A further elementary use of directed numbers is for

CHANGES and ERRORS.
Example 1. Draw a line on a piece of paper and ask
your friends to estimate its length in mm. Then
measure it properly. Record the various estimates and
the errors:
Estimate (mm)

Name

Error (mm)

40
25

+8
-7

Example 2.
now

Population

Accelerometer
from spacecraft

There is no urge to write

B + -C = -A
(Incidentally, this notation may be elaborated. When
you reach the end of the alphabet, you may continue
AA, AB, AC ... AZ, BA ... Can this go on for ever? If
you go into two dimensions, can you use letters as
co-ordinates?)

--30

Even the weakest mathematician is surely capable of

reading such a scale, and no doubt every syllabus will
include this skill either explicitly or implicitly.

-C

...-D

Alan
Brian
etc.

-30

--20

no obvious call to add them or perform other

because there are no corresponding
operations
operations that are naturally performed on points. The
matter may be emphasised by a change of notation. If
for the moment we confine attention to integer points,
then we may as well use letters of the alphabet as
numbers:

Pop. 10 years ago

53
42

Anglia
Bretony

Change

+5
-17

48
59

etc.

These elementary problems on Changes and Errors

do not involve addition or other operations on directed
numbers. The pupil may certainly have to do
subtraction of the essentially positive numbers that
occur in other columns of the tables, but he is not
asked to combine two of the directed numbers.

6. Nevertheless, changes can be combined, and the

natural way of combining them leads to addition of
directed numbers. Easiest to picture are changes of
position, or DISPLA CEMENTS.
The first stage of work with co-ordinates is simply
plotting of points and reading of co-ordinates (e.g.
The
over
the
telephone).
describing
shapes
generalisation from the first quadrant to other
quadrants is plausible, and incidently facilitates the
treatment of symmetrical figures.
4. It will be noted that the symbols -2, +3, etc., in the
above situations are merely labels for points. There is

Simple Displacement Game

//+\
I

FINISH

ISTA' I

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I FINISH

Place your counter at Start. Spin the spinner. If it

reads +2, move two places to the right; if -2, two
places left.
This game does not itself require the notation of
addition; it merely introduces the idea of performing
one displacement after another.
7. Addition arises if you start to think about the game
rather than actually playing it. Imagine you were to
spin -2 followed by +3; where would you finish? What
would be equivalent? Write:
single displacement
-2 + +3 = +1.
in writing
If the pupil shows no interest
-2 + +3 = +1, then I suppose the only honest course is
to drop the matter and console yourself with the
thought that he is not yet ready for this piece of
abstraction.
On the other hand, if he takes it without resistance,
you can press the matter for all it is worth, which is
quite a lot, because the set of displacements displays
the full additive structure of directed numbers, that is
it forms a commutative group. This means you can ask
questions like:
Is +2 + -3 the same as -3+ +2?
If several displacements are performed one after the
other, does it make any difference in what order they
are done?
Find x so that +2 + x = -5.
Incidentally, there is no need to introduce the
operation of subtraction in connection with equations
like
+2 + x = -5.
The device of adding the inverse (e.g. -2 is the
inverse of +2) will provide for all needs.
8. The displacement game may be played in two
dimensions on a grid. Moreover, having introduced
things like
+2

-1

as labels for displacements, one may proceed to draw

"iourneys" like.
-1
+1
+2
+1

\+2

\+1

and to ask: What single displacement is equivalent (the

short-cut)?
It is to be noted that the addition sign here does not
signify addition of directed numbers.(It is addition of
2-dimensional displacements, or, if you prefer, of
column matrices.) I am not sure whether this
ambiguity does harm or not.
9. One thing that does seem unnecessarily confusing is
to use directed numbers simultaneously as labels for
points and as labels for displacements.
-1
+2
-1
-3

-2

-1

+1

+2

On the one hand, we still have the additive structure

among displacements:
(R2) + (L3) = (Ll)
etc.
It is also true that, if you start at point -3, and make
a displacement (R7), you finish at point +4. But there
is little temptation to write
-3 + (R7) = +4.
If points and displacements share a common system
of labelling, there may be a temptation to add a
displacement-label to a point-label:
-3 + +7 = +4.
This sort of thing may perhaps be acceptable later,
is
when addition is secure, but it undoubtedly
something of a hybrid, and does not make for clarity.
10. In two dimensions there is less temptation to add a
displacement matrix to a pair of co-ordinates because
they are written differently. However, the principle
remains that, if you wish to concentrate on addition of
displacements, it is distracting to have co-ordinates
around as well, and better to use a bare grid, as we did
above.
11. Of course, just because a child can write
-1 + +5 = +4
as symbolising a result about displacements, it does not
follow that he has grasped addition of directed
numbers in all its fullness.

For instance, if you revise with him the work he did

earlier on Co-ordinate Patterns, in which he noticed
that the points (4,0) (3,1) (2,2) (1,3) and (0,4) all lay
on a line while their co-ordinates all displayed the
pattern
x+y=4
and if you then ask him whether x + y = 4 continues to
hold for the point (-1, +5), he may well fail to see how
the co-ordinates -1 and +5 may be added since they
are not displacement numbers. (We leave the resolution
of this difficulty as an exercise for the teacher.)
12. Multiplication of directed numbers is considerably
more difficult than addition. There will be pupils who
drop out between addition and multiplication.
still.)
is probably
more difficult
(Subtraction
Multiplication does not arise very obviously from
because
one does not multiply
displacements
displacements together. Still less does one multiply
points together, or displacements by points. Before a
child begins to multiply directed numbers, he must, I
believe, develop the notion of a directed number as a
COMPARISON FACTOR. That is, he must acquire the
habit of describing one thing as -2 (or +3, etc.) times
another.
13. Actually this can arise nicely in connection with
Enlargements.
After you have done positive enlargements, e.g. draw
flag B to be 2 times as high as flag A,

+3

Let us again make a change of notation. Continue to

let +2, -1, etc. refer to points, but label displacements
as

'A
- ,

(R2), (L1), etc.

R stands for "right"; L for "left".

--

you can try negative enlargements:

11

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flag C is -2 times as tall as flag A.

The factors +2 and -2 in this context are usually
known as the Scale Factors of the enlargements, but
scale factors are particular cases of Comparison
Factors.
14. It is probably helpful if the pupil has done some
conscious work on essentially positive comparison
factors. Cuisenaire Rods provide a good start:
Pink
L. Green
Red
White

Write: PINK = 2 x RED

1
RED
=
x PINK
L
= 1c x RED
etc.
Gen.

ed

And play with these RELATION DIA GRAMS:

White

Red

while comparison factors are

(S2), (Op2), etc.
S standing for "same" and Op for "opposite".
Then we have many relations:
(Op2) x (L3) = (R6)
(Op3) x (L2) = (R6)(S3)
(S3) x (R2) = (R6)
(S2) x (R3) = (R6)
(Please play around with the notation for a while.)
But in no case are we multiplying together two
elements of the same kind. (So, for example, the
question of commutativity does not arise.)
17. A purer kind of multiplication involves comparison
factors only.
Let A, B, C, etc., be displacements or other directed
objects, which, however, we shall not label by means
of directed numbers.
After successfully doing problems on the comparison
factors relating such objects when the objects are
visibly present on the page, one may graduate to more
abstract problems like this:
If B is +3 times A, and C is -2 times B, how do A and
C compare?
The problems may be illustrated by a relation diagram:

32

+3

laLight
Green

-2

Pink

C
(Fill in the remaining comparison factors.)
15. Similar work can be done on comparing directed
objects.

-2

At IB( IC

-1

B = -2 xA
etc.
16. There are, however, further difficulties with
multiplication,
even after the idea of a directed
comparison factor is established. Consider again
displacements on a line:
+6

The answer is, of course, that C is -6 times A. The

number -6 has been derived from +3 and -2. This
relationship between the comparison factors is called
"multiplication", and one writes
-6 = +3 x -2
or one could write
(S3) x (Op2) = (Op6)
or one may say that multiplication of comparison
factors is defined by the relation: if B = x.A, and
C = y.B, then C = yx.A.
Multiplication of comparison factors provides a pure
multiplicative structure: if you exclude the zero
comparison factor, you have a group.
However, it is all fairly abstract. First we have the
elements (e.g. displacements) A, B, C, etc. Then we
have comparison relations +3, etc., between pairs of
elements.
Finally, multiplication is a process whereby two of
these comparison relations combine to form a third.
Some pupils may never manage all that. Yet, until a
pupil has, it is doubtful if he can claim to understand
multiplication of directed numbers.

-3
-6
Is one to jump in straight away and observe that
displacement +6 is -2 times displacement -3, and
hence write
+6 = -2 x -3
This may have its advantages, but it is another hybrid:
multiplication
of a comparison
factor and a
displacement-number.
Let us change the notation again. Let displacements
be symbolised by
(R2), (L2), etc., as before,

In the next issue:

Professor Zeeman writes on why mathematics is
the most original and most creative of all the
sciences.
Dr
Flynn,
Gordano Comprehensive
School,
Portishead, puts his views on streaming.
A piece of C. S. E. coursework is assessed and there
is a letter on the Open University Foundation
Course and its possible effects on the teaching of
mathematics.

12

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