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1545
Girolamo Cardano
In his work "Great Art", he used what he called fictitious (negative) numbers to show the impossibility of solving certain equations. While he said they were useless to the "real" world, they are useful in studying algebra. -
Colin Maclaurin
Colin Maclaurin was a European mathematician most known today for the Maclaurin Series in calculus. In terms of the debate about negative numbers, he argued that numbers with signs have physical importance for values such as position speed, etc. that negative values are needed to express. He even argued that negative numbers are no less real than positives. -
Jean le Rond d'Alembert
d'Alembert was a French mathematician that rose to prominence during the eighteenth century. He argued that negative numbers were absurd and that their existence was merely a mistake in writing the equations. Such as 100 + x = 50 where x would equal -50, instead he argued that it should be 100 - x = 50 so that x never had to be a negative value. -
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Robert Woodhouse
Robert Woodhouse was a mathematician that argued strongly for the use of negative and imaginary numbers. He even published a paper defending results obtained using imaginary numbers.
