Why is a negative times a negative a positive?

fly yellow

It just keeps the natural progression of numbers in mathmetics. Here is the best example I can come up with:

5 x -4 = -20
4 x -4 = -16
3 x -4 = -12
2 x -4 = -8
1 x -4 = -4
0 x -4 = 0
-1 x -4 = 4
-2 x -4 = 8
-3 x -4 = 12
-4 x -4 = 16
-5 x -4 = 20

In that example the first factor is continuously reduced by 1. The second factor is consistently -4. The product will continue to increase by 4.

I don't know if that helps, but I really don't think there is a decent way to explain it without making yourself retarded.

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