Everyday Uses of Negative Numbers
- Goal difference in association football and hockey; points difference in rugby football; net run rate in cricket; golf scores relative to par.
- British football clubs are deducted points if they enter administration, and thus have a negative points total until they have earned at least that many points that season.
- Lap (or sector) times in Formula 1 may be given as the difference compared to a previous lap (or sector) (such as the previous record, or the lap just completed by a driver in front), and will be positive if slower and negative if faster.
- In some athletics events, such as sprint races, the hurdles, the triple jump and the long jump, the wind assistance is measured and recorded, and is positive for a tailwind and negative for a headwind.
- Temperatures which are colder than 0°C or 0°F.
- Bank account balances which are overdrawn.
- Refunds to a credit card or debit card are a negative debit.
- A company might make a negative annual profit (ie. a loss).
- The annual percentage growth in a country's GDP might be negative, which is one indicator of being in a recession.
- Occasionally, a rate of inflation may be negative (deflation), indicating a fall in average prices.
- The daily change in a stock market index, such as the FTSE 100 or the Dow Jones.
- Topographical features of the earth's surface are given a height above sea level, which can be negative (eg. The surface elevation of The Dead Sea).
- The numbering of storeys in a building below the ground floor.
- When playing an audio file on a portable media player, such as an iPod, the screen display may show the time remaining as a negative number, which increases up to zero at the same rate as the time already played increases from zero.
- Participants on the quiz show QI often finish with a negative points score.
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Famous quotes containing the words everyday, negative and/or numbers:
“I always used to suffer a great deal if I let myself get too close to reality since the definitive world of the everyday with its hard edges and harsh light did not have enough resonance to echo the demands I made upon experience. It was as if I never experienced experience as experience. Living never lived up to the expectations I had of it—the Bovary syndrome.”
—Angela Carter (1942–1992)
“Isolation in creative work is an onerous thing. Better to have negative criticism than nothing at all.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)
“All experience teaches that, whenever there is a great national establishment, employing large numbers of officials, the public must be reconciled to support many incompetent men; for such is the favoritism and nepotism always prevailing in the purlieus of these establishments, that some incompetent persons are always admitted, to the exclusion of many of the worthy.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)