Not as confusing as you'd think, though, if you invoke the rule of product. The number of ways to do A and then B is the number of ways to do A times the numbe

Not as confusing as you'd think, though, if you invoke the rule of product. The number of ways to do A and then B is the number of ways to do A times the number of ways to do B. The number of ways to do nothing and then A should be the same as the number of ways to do A. This implies that the number of ways to do nothing is the multiplicative identity, one.