Antonio Wolf’s Reviews > Negative Math: How Mathematical Rules Can Be Positively Bent > Status Update

The history of the controversy over the conceptual meaning of the negative sign and numbers is fascinating. It *was never resolved* because mathematics ceased trying to be a science with real content and simply became a science of formal syntax and consistent rule following.

tl;dr: Mathematics, once the science of quantity or magnitude, eventually gave up this claim to save its formalism.