Plasma (physics) potential in the space between charged particles, independent of how it can be measured, is called the "plasma potential", or the "space potential". If an electrode is inserted into a plasma, its potential will generally lie considerably below the plasma potential due to what is termed a Debye sheath. The good electrical conductivity of plasmas makes their electric fields very small. This results in the important concept of "quasineutrality", which says the density of negative charges is approximately equal to the density of positive charges over large volumes of the plasma (formula_6), but on the scale of the Debye length
Negative number 's together yields : The reasoning behind the second example is more complicated. The idea again is that losing a debt is the same thing as gaining a credit. In this case, losing two debts of three each is the same as gaining a credit of six: The convention that a product of two negative numbers is positive is also necessary for multiplication to follow the distributive law. In this case, we know that Since , the product must equal . These rules lead to another (equivalent) rule—the sign of any product "a" × "b" depends on the sign of