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The following usage is actually fairly common: Natural numbers: strictly positive integers Whole numbers: non-negative integers
by stephencanon 14y ago
The following usage is actually fairly common:
Natural numbers: strictly positive integers
Whole numbers: non-negative integers
- ColinWright 14y agoI'm intrigued to learn that some people have the convention that "-3" is not a whole number.
- stephencanon 14y agoI'm much more of an applied mathematician these days, but IIRC, the usage is especially prevalent in 19th century (and earlier) number theory, most often by authors who take the "natural numbers" to be {1,2,3,...} and therefore require a name for the set {0,1,2,3,...}. I have definitely come across the usage in more modern settings as well, however.