From what I read, negative numbers took a while to be accepted for the same reason, so you are not alone ;) IMO negative numbers, complex numbers for circles,

From what I read, negative numbers took a while to be accepted for the same reason, so you are not alone ;) IMO negative numbers, complex numbers for circles, etc can be thought of as practical overloads. If we agree that the symbol minus means a debt, we can use it like that. We could agree, on *5 as meaning something, and if enough find it useful in 200 years we will teach it in school as obvious. I think the negative number is obviously useful (you can add up positive and negative numbers and get a balance, it has an easy way to be plotted, etc) P.S. another example is the Orbifold notation, from Conway. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbifold_notation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbifold_notation