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Understanding negative numbers is crucial when working with multiplication problems involving negatives. Negative numbers are numbers less than zero, often denoted with a minus sign (-). They can represent things such as debts or temperatures below zero.
When dealing with negative numbers, remember:

• A negative number times another negative number results in a positive number.
• A negative number times a positive number results in a negative number.
• Two negative signs cancel each other out, turning the result into a positive.

These basic rules come in handy when you face more complex problems, helping you determine the sign of your result.

Multiplication is one of the basic arithmetic operations. It combines two numbers into a single product. When multiplying numbers, particularly negative numbers, it's important to keep track of both the magnitude (how large the number is) and the sign (positive or negative).
Consider the sign rules as essential guidelines:

• Positive × Positive = Positive
• Negative × Negative = Positive
• Positive × Negative = Negative
• Negative × Positive = Negative

Understanding these rules and applying them correctly ensures accurate calculations, even with multiple negative numbers involved in the multiplication process.

Tackling complex multiplication problems can be simpler with a step-by-step approach. Let’s break down the problem \(-8 \cdot(-1.3) \cdot(-5)\) into manageable steps:
Step 1 - Identify the numbers to be multiplied:
Here, the numbers are \(-8\), \(-1.3\), and \(-5\).
Step 2 - Multiply the first two numbers:
We first multiply \(-8\) by \(-1.3\). Since both numbers are negative, their product is positive \(10.4\).
Step 3 - Multiply the result by the third number:
Now, take result \(10.4\) and multiply it by \(-5\). A positive number multiplied by a negative number gives a negative result \(-52\). By following each step carefully, you can confidently solve similar multiplication problems involving negative numbers.