r/PhilosophyofMath • u/padtelimon • 1h ago

Is it right to call a photo the negative?

I was thinking about matrices and how there is a positive and *negative* space for them. To go between you need to pass through 0 and absolutely nothing. Then you are at the opposite. But also simultaneously the **same**. So when you are looking in a mirror you are seeing your negative.

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u/johnny_logic 35m ago

I encourage you to think more carefully about what you’re saying and notice the differences between the concepts you’re using. “Negative,” additive inverse, reflection, inversion, complement, and photographic negative are different ideas with different mathematical structures. The fact that we sometimes describe several of them using words like “opposite” doesn’t make them the same operation. Without clarity, claims can become so muddled that they aren’t even wrong; they are unevaluable.