Updated 23 June 2016
Although negative numbers have been in use in India since the middle ages, they were not fully adopted across Europe until the seventeenth century. Use this addition and subtraction puzzle using directed numbers to help students find out a little bit of the history of negative numbers. If you find this resource useful, there are more. Search for: decode the origins of the decimal point or decode the origins of our decimal number system.

Key words: directed numbers, negative, positive, add, subtract, number line, count forwards, count backwards, zero, did you know, codes, decode, worksheet, history of mathematics, puzzle book.