Interpretation of negative values in the real world

[robvalue]

I have always wondered if negative values have a meaning, and we just havent discovered how to use them.

For example, if we make an exercise about accelerated movement, and we obtain 2 values for time from a quadratic equation: one positive, and one negative. We are taught to ignore the negative value because it makes no sense in the real world. But is it really true?

I feel mathematics always tell us something. We just need to discover how to interpret negative values.

Sure, the solutions could potentially mean something in certain situations. The reason we ignore some of them is because they are outside the scope of the practical problem. Mapping the real world onto (whole) functions is not one to one; we are picking out a portion of the function which represents our situation. The rest of the function represents potential extrapolation beyond those boundaries, which may not be accurate (or even possible). You probably know all this, but anyhow You can't cut away 12cm from a 10cm piece of wood, or take -3s to come to a stop.

It is weird and fascinating, I agree. You could think of the other solutions as things that would happen in an alternate reality that was able to follow the path of the function outside the boundaries for which it is currently possible.