The Whole Numbers

The most basic objects in mathematics are the natural or whole numbers, 0, 1, 2, . . .. Here are the introductory remarks in the chapter on Developing Early Number Concepts and Number Sense in one of the best selling mathematics methods texts in the United States: Number is a complex and multifaceted concept. A rich understanding of number, a relational understanding, involves many dierent ideas, relationships, and skills. Children come to school with many ideas about number. These ideas shoud be built upon as we work with children and help them develop new relationships. It is sad to see the large number of students in grades 5 and above who essentially know little more about number than how to count. It takes time and lots of experiences for children to develop a full understnading of number that will grow and enhance all the further number-related concepts of the school year. This chapter looks at the development of number ideas for number up to about 20. These founcational ideas can all be extended to larger number, operations, basic facts, and compuation. Then a list of three big ideas is given: 1. Counting tells how many things are in a set. When counting a set of objects, the last word in the counting sequence names the quantity for that set. 2. Numbers are related to each other through a variety of number relationships. The number 7, for example, is more than 4, two less than 9, composed of 3 and 4 ans well as 2 and 5, is three away from 10, and can be quickly recognized in several patterned arrangements of dots. 3. Number concepts are intimately tied to the world around us. Application of number relationships to the real world marks the beginning of making sense of the world in a mathematical manner. Note that in the U.S. book there is a clear view that whatever the concepts of number children come to school with, they are valid. These ideas should be built upon as we work with children. Additionally, it would appear that whole numbers are regarded as somewhat mysterious objects in the United States imbued with profound depths, ideas and relationships. But the big ideas about number focus rst on counting, then there are unnamed relationships, and nally there are unnamed connections to the world around us. Underlying the approach in the U.S. is the following formal notion of what a whole 1

number is: We say that two sets, A and B, have the same cardinality if there is a one-to-one correspondence between the elements of A and B. We say the cardinality of A is innite if there is a one-to-one correspondence between the elements of A and the elements of a proper subset B A. If a set is not innite then it is nite. The cardinalities of the nite sets are the whole numbers. Hidden in this is the notion of an equivalence relation. This is the process that goes from same cardinality to the set of cardinalities. By contrast, the introduction of numbers in the high achieving countries is quite dierent and involves far less sophisticated set theory. In particular a major point is made in those programs that counting properly is only a use of numbers, not a dening property of numbers. This distinction will turn out to be profoundly important.

Lessons on Numbers in a Solid U.S. Text

These lessons and those on the next page are from the Kindergarten program.

These are from the rst grade program.

In mathematics instruction in the high achieving countries such as the former iron curtain countries, China, Singapore, Korea, and Japan, instruction also starts in their rst lessons in the rst grade with an introduction of these numbers and their basic properties. But the approach is strikingly dierent. Here is the rst part of the introduction to the book for the rst Methods Course in the Hungarian Mathematics Education curriculum: When a parent takes his child to rst grade he is usually happy to tell the teacher that little Tommy can count till 100 already. Pride is a good sign, because it signals: its important for the parent to see his child develop not only physically, but intellectually as well. Sometimes it soon turns out (and the sooner the better) that the correctly named numbers by this same child have no content; the child knows the numerals, but not the concept of numbers. He can say the words in order: one, two, three ... thirty eight, thirty nine, forty, forty one ..., but he cannot really tell which one is more: 5 apples or 7 apples, or have a clear picture about the order of size, equalities or the contents of the numerals. We need to add quickly that its not a problem: building the concept of numbers is the task of the school. If a child doesnt possess the concept of numbers when starting school, then he will learn it with the teachers help; its not too late in the rst grade. The only thing is that the child who is ahead, will need to do something else, than the one who is just learning. (Its not an easy job to adapt to dierent needs, but developing starts with learning about the dierent levels: its important for the conscious developmental process.) Concept building has many components: it consists of forming many thoughts that can be separated in theory, whereas in practice they appear together, reinforcing each other. Main contents of the forming of the concept of natural numbers: Connection between numbers and reality; Writing and reading numbers; place value form and numerical system form of numbers; Magnitude of numbers The many dierent names of numbers; Properties of numbers, relations of numbers. The forming of the concept of numbers begins way before the age of 6 and doesnt end in lower grades. We will now examine the dierent content components from the childs rst experiences till the end of grade 4.

In this chapter we will rst give a rigorous denition of the whole numbers as they are understood by mathematicians. Then we will present the rst lessons in the Russian First Grade books from the 1980s. The vocabulary used in the rigorous denitions is not, of course, available to rst grade students, yet, by comparing the material in the actual lessons with the Peano axioms, it should be clear that using grade appropriate language these early lessons are setting forth the same properties, and in much the same way.

The Peano Axioms

The Peano axioms dene the properties of whole numbers, usually represented as a set 0 . The rst four axioms describe the equality relation (1) For every whole number x, x = x. That is, equality is reexive. (2) For all whole numbers x and y , if x = y , then y = x. That is, equality is symmetric. (3) For all whole numbers x, y and z , if x = y and y = z , then x = z . That is, equality is transitive. (4) For all x and y , if x is a whole number and x = y , then y is also a whole number. That is, the whole numbers are closed under equality. The rst axiom says any whole number is equal to itself. The second says that if a whole number a is equal to a whole number b, then b is equal to a as well. The third can be rephrased, using the second axiom, as saying that if two whole numbers are equal to a third, then they are equal to each other. Later, when we talk about relations, particularly equivalence relations we will see the rst three axioms again, in a dierent guise that will help us see why they are the key properties of equality.

The remaining ve axioms dene the key properties of the whole numbers. We start by assuming that there is at least one whole number, the number 0. (5) 0 is a whole number. Then we introduce a special map S from the whole numbers to the whole numbers called the successor function, that can be thought of as adding 1. Later in the course, when we
talk further about the underlying foundations for school mathematics we will discuss functions and their properties in much more depth. For now, we note that a function or map from the set X to the set Y is simply a rule that determines a unique element y Y for each element x X . We usually write f (x) for the y Y that is associated to x, and sometimes we write f (x) = y or y = f (x).

(6) For every whole number x, S (x) is a whole number. We obtain 1 as S (0), 2 as S (1), 3 as S (2) and so on. But to make this sensible we have to list two properties that the successor function S must satisfy. (7) For every whole number x, S (x) = 0. That is, there is no whole number whose successor is 0. (8) For all whole numbers x and y , if S (x) = S (y ), then x = y . That is, S is one-to-one. But note that Axiom (7) shows that S is not onto since 0 is not in the image of S . These two axioms together imply that the set of natural numbers has the property that it is in one-to-one correspondence with a proper subset, since S is one-to-one and 0 is not in the image of S . We can see intuitively that if the set of whole numbers were nite this cannot happen. Any one-to-one mapping of a nite set to itself must be onto the entire set. Consequently, our intuition is that the set of whole numbers must be innite. However, in mathematics, intuition is only an aid. All our terms must be precisely dened, so we DEFINE the property of being innite as follows: Definition. A set W is innite if and only if there is a one-to-one correspondence between the set W and a proper subset of W . Now, we can unambiguously state that Peanos axioms (7) and (8) imply that the set of whole numbers is innite.

These terms may not be familiar to everyone. One-to-one correspondence is a map or function from a set X to a set Y that has the property that f (x) = f (x ) if and only if x = x . The function x 2x is one-to-one on the whole numbers but the function x2 4x + 6 is not one-to-one since the values for x = 1 and x = 3 are both 3. The image of a function f is the set of those elements y Y so that there is some x X with f (x) = y . The image of x2 4x + 5 as a map from the whole numbers to the whole numbers is all the whole numbers but 0 and 1. 9

There is one more Peano axiom for the set of whole numbers. So far, the axioms give a picture of the following kind 0 A B . . . S (0) S (A) S (B ) . . . S (S (0)) S (S (A)) S (S (B )) . . . S (S (S (0)))) S (S (S (A)))) S (S (S (B )))) . . . ... ... ... .. .

together with a number of circular sequences V , S (V ), S (S (V )), etc. with S (S (S ( S (V ) ))) = V for some iterate of S . The axioms to this point do not specify how many elements there are in the whole numbers that are not in the image of the successor function, nor the number of circles, just that S is one-to-one, which means each element not in the image of S leads to an innite tower as sketched above, and the towers or circles for dierent elements do not intersect. The nal axiom, Axiom (9), species that 0 is the only whole number that is not in the image of S and that there are no circles. (9) If K is a set so that 0 is contained in K and for every whole number x, if x K, then S (x) K, then K contains every whole number. This axiom is usually called the axiom of induction because one of its consequences is that if T is a property that can be true or false for whole numbers then if it true for 0, and if we can show that the truth of the statement for any whole number n implies that the statement is true for S (n), then the conclusion is that the statement is true for every whole number. Here is an example. We note that 1 = 12 , 1 + 3 = 22 , 1 + 3 + 5 = 32 , and we wonder if the sum of the rst k + 1 odd whole numbers is the square (k + 1)2 . We can verify that this is true for all whole numbers if we can verify that it is true for the rst which it is since 1 = 12 and verify that if it is true for k then it is also true for k + 1. In this case the argument is that the truth for k is exactly the statement that 1 + 3 + 5 + + (2k + 1) = (k + 1)2 is true. Then the statment for k + 1 is (1 + 3 + 5 + + (2k + 1)) + 2(k + 1) + 1 = (k + 2)2 . We have to show that the truth of the statement for k implies the truth for k + 1. Because we assume the truth of the statement for k we can rewrite the statement for k + 1 as (k + 1)2 + 2(k + 1) + 1 = (k + 1 + 1)2 = (k + 2)2 . 10

But this is a true statement since we know, from algebra, that (a + b)2 = a2 + 2ab + b2 , and substituting k + 1 for a and 1 for b gives (k + 1 + 1)2 = (k + 1)2 + 2(k + 1) + 1. There is one more concept that is tied in to these axioms. We say that the whole number n is greater than the whole number m if and only if n is not equal to m, but is the image of m under some iterate of S . We write n > m as a shorthand notation for n is greater than m. Likewise, we say m is less than n if and only if n is greater than m, and we write m < n as a shorthand notation for m is less than n. From the denitions, if m and n are any two whole numbers then they will satisfy one and only one of the three statements m = n, m < n or m > n.

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The First Lessons in the First Grade Russian Text

Here the basic notion of successor is introduced in the guise of more or less. A number is more than another number if and only if it is in the image of an iteration of the successor map on the original number. Then names are introduced.

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The symbols for greater than, less than, and equals are introduced as well as the names of the rst three numbers and the sums and dierences for them.

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The numbers through ve are introduced and the students are asked to do a number of problems. Note that the focus is on the mathematical concepts. There are virtually no words present except for essential vocabulary. It is also worth noting that all the key concepts are introduced using very small numbers - numbers that are almost hardwired in our brains. 14

After these problems, the next lessons introduce the rest of the numbers between 6 and 10 in a very similar way. Note that subtraction is developed for the same number set at the same time as addition is for the numbers to 5. Subtraction is also handled simultaneously with addition in the lessons to 10. Mathematically, this makes perfect sense because subtraction is dened in terms of addition: a b = c is a true statement if and only if b + c = a. So subtraction is just addition where one of the addends is not necessarily known. Of course, we have not really dened addition for whole numbers to this point. However, this can be accomplished by using the successor function and induction. The key inductive statement is that 0 + n = n for each n as the start of an inductive denition of addition. Then, if we assume that the value of k + n is known for each n we dene the value of S (k ) + n as S (k + n). Using this denition we have to show that the standard properties for addition hold. These are (1) k + n = n + k for all whole numbers n and k , and (2) k + (s + n) = (k + s) + n for all whole numbers k , s and n. Exercise. (1) Can you prove statement (1) above in the case where n = 0? 15