Ioannis Aslanidis wrote:
If you are asking about mathematic stright definition:
negative integer: -inf,...,-1
positive integer: 1,...,inf
natural: 0,...,inf
The group of natural numbers includes the positive integers and zero.
That is the definition in most places in the world; however, in the
United States and a few more countries, non-negative integers is how
the lot is called.
I was going to dig back to my math minor and wax eloquent about how this
is incorrect, but it turns out we're both right:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_numbers
The natural numbers may or may not include zero depending on who's using
the term. That was actually news to me - my understanding is that zero
was not considered a natural number, but it was considered a whole number.
And now that we've totally drifted off topic here I'll be quiet...
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