Can negative numbers be called large? [closed]
I am dealing with an unknown number x. I don't know if x is negative or positive, but I do know that the magnitude is huge.
So, can I say x is large without implying that it is positive?
Solution 1:
While large would technically be applicable to a negative number, the reader could easily mis-interpret it. The Wikipedia definition, while imperfect, states the following:
The term typically refers to large positive integers, or more generally, large positive real numbers, but it may also be used in other contexts.
I would suggest, to avoid any kind of confusion, to use one of the followings :
- The absolute value of x is large
- x's magnitude is large
- x's is a number of order 10ⁿ
Solution 2:
-- Can I say x is large without implying that it has to be positive?
No. By saying that x is large you do not imply (in the mathematical sense) that it has to be positive, but it may still be understood that way. If you want to convey that x is an integer of large magnitude (as I understand it), then it is not safe to just say that x is large, because a large number of people in the audience will implicitly assume x is a natural number (a cardinal). Many of the others will not make this assumption. This post, with its diverse answers, exemplifies the problem quite well.
However, it is quite possible that you will be able to convey elsewhere in the text that x need not be positive, and this will caution your audience not to make the assumption.
The answer to the question in the title is yes, by the way. Negative numbers can still be called large without qualms. However, just saying 'large number' is not a safe way of rendering a number of large magnitude without knowing whether it is positive.
Solution 3:
If you take the absolute value, or modulus, of a number, it becomes real and positive.
In this sense, a negative (or complex) number may be called 'large'.
If we consider a real-world example, you might say a country has a 'large' debt.