Raul asked:
> 0 is a natural number?
>From http://mathworld.wolfram.com/NaturalNumber.html :
A positive integer 1, 2, 3, ... (Sloane's A000027). The set of natural
numbers is denoted N.
Unfortunately, 0 is sometimes also included in the list of
"natural" numbers (Bourbaki 1968, Halmos 1974), and there
seems to be no general agreement about whether to include it.
In fact, Ribenboim (1996) states "Let P be a set of natural
numbers; whenever convenient, it may be assumed that 0 e. P ."
Due to lack of standard terminology, the following terms and
notations are recommended in preference to "counting number,"
"natural number," and "whole number." ...
If I were God-King, I would mandate "natural numbers" indicate the positive
integers, whole numbers are the integers, and would
prohibit the use of the term "counting numbers".
Since it took mankind several millennia to agree that 0 is a number at all, I
cannot see that it is a "natural" concept. A
similar argument could be applied to "counting numbers", as in "how can you
COUNT zero apples?", except that "0 count" would seem,
to me, as legitimate a label on a basket of apples as "12 count".
I cannot think of a good, unambiguous term for the non-negative integers other
than that, itself.
-Dan
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