Natural Number

2/19/22, 10:47 PM Natural number - Wikipedia
Natural number
In mathematics, the natural numbers are those numbers used for
counting (as in "there are six coins on the table") and ordering (as in
"this is the third largest city in the country"). In common language,
numbers used for counting colloquially called "cardinal numbers",
and words used for ordering are called "ordinal numbers". The natural
numbers can, at times, appear as a convenient set of codes (labels or
"names"), that is, as what linguists call nominal numbers, forgoing
many or all of the properties of being a number in a mathematical
sense.[1][2]
The double-struck capital N
Some definitions, including the standard ISO 80000-2,[3][a] begin the symbol, often used to
natural numbers with 0, corresponding to the non-negative denote the set of all natural
integers 0, 1, 2, 3, ..., whereas others start with 1, corresponding to numbers (see Glossary of
mathematical symbols).
the positive integers 1, 2, 3, ...[4][b] Texts that exclude zero from
the natural numbers sometimes refer to the natural numbers together
with zero as the whole numbers, while in other writings, that
term is used instead for the integers (including negative
integers).[5]
The natural numbers are a basis from which many other

number sets may be built by extension: the integers, by
including (if not yet in) the neutral element 0 and an additive
inverse (−n) for each nonzero natural number n; the rational
numbers, by including a multiplicative inverse ( ) for each
nonzero integer n (and also the product of these inverses by
integers); the real numbers by including with the rationals the
limits of (converging) Cauchy sequences of rationals; the
complex numbers, by including with the real numbers the
unresolved square root of minus one (and also the sums and
products thereof); and so on.[c][d] This chain of extensions Natural numbers can be used for
make the natural numbers canonically embedded (identified) counting (one apple, two apples,
in the other number systems. three apples, ...)
Properties of the natural numbers, such as divisibility and the

distribution of prime numbers, are studied in number theory. Problems concerning counting and
ordering, such as partitioning and enumerations, are studied in combinatorics.
In common language, particularly in primary school education, natural numbers may be called
counting numbers[6] to intuitively exclude the negative integers and zero, and also to contrast
the discreteness of counting to the continuity of measurement—a hallmark characteristic of real
numbers.
Contents
History
Ancient roots
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_number 1/13
Modern definitions
Notation
Properties
Addition
Multiplication
Relationship between addition and multiplication
Order
Division
Algebraic properties satisfied by the natural numbers
Infinity
Generalizations
Formal definitions
Peano axioms
Constructions based on set theory
Von Neumann ordinals
Zermelo ordinals
See also
Notes
References
Bibliography
External links
History
Ancient roots
The most primitive method of representing a natural number is to put down a mark for each
object. Later, a set of objects could be tested for equality, excess or shortage—by striking out a
mark and removing an object from the set.
The first major advance in abstraction was the use of numerals to represent numbers. This allowed
systems to be developed for recording large numbers. The ancient Egyptians developed a powerful
system of numerals with distinct hieroglyphs for 1, 10, and all powers of 10 up to over 1 million. A
stone carving from Karnak, dating back from around 1500 BCE and now at the Louvre in Paris,
depicts 276 as 2 hundreds, 7 tens, and 6 ones; and similarly for the number 4,622. The
Babylonians had a place-value system based essentially on the numerals for 1 and 10, using base
sixty, so that the symbol for sixty was the same as the symbol for one—its value being determined
from context.[10]
A much later advance was the development of the idea that 0 can be considered as a number, with
its own numeral. The use of a 0 digit in place-value notation (within other numbers) dates back as
early as 700 BCE by the Babylonians, who omitted such a digit when it would have been the last
symbol in the number.[e] The Olmec and Maya civilizations used 0 as a separate number as early
as the 1st century BCE, but this usage did not spread beyond Mesoamerica.[12][13] The use of a
numeral 0 in modern times originated with the Indian mathematician Brahmagupta in 628 CE.
However, 0 had been used as a number in the medieval computus (the calculation of the date of
Easter), beginning with Dionysius Exiguus in 525 CE, without being denoted by a numeral
(standard Roman numerals do not have a symbol for 0). Instead,

nulla (or the genitive form nullae) from nullus, the Latin word for
"none", was employed to denote a 0 value.[14]
The first systematic study of numbers as abstractions is usually

credited to the Greek philosophers Pythagoras and Archimedes. Some
Greek mathematicians treated the number 1 differently than larger
numbers, sometimes even not as a number at all.[f] Euclid, for
example, defined a unit first and then a number as a multitude of
units, thus by his definition, a unit is not a number and there are no
unique numbers (e.g., any two units from indefinitely many units is a
2).[16]
Independent studies on numbers also occurred at around the same

time in India, China, and Mesoamerica.[17]
The Ishango bone (on
exhibition at the Royal
Modern definitions Belgian Institute of Natural
Sciences)[7][8][9] is believed
In 19th century Europe, there was mathematical and philosophical to have been used
discussion about the exact nature of the natural numbers. A school of 20,000 years ago for
Naturalism stated that the natural numbers were a direct consequence natural number arithmetic.
of the human psyche. Henri Poincaré was one of its advocates, as was
Leopold Kronecker, who summarized his belief as "God made the
integers, all else is the work of man".[g]
In opposition to the Naturalists, the constructivists saw a need to improve upon the logical rigor in
the foundations of mathematics.[h] In the 1860s, Hermann Grassmann suggested a recursive
definition for natural numbers, thus stating they were not really natural—but a consequence of
definitions. Later, two classes of such formal definitions were constructed; later still, they were
shown to be equivalent in most practical applications.
Set-theoretical definitions of natural numbers were initiated by Frege. He initially defined a

natural number as the class of all sets that are in one-to-one correspondence with a particular set.
However, this definition turned out to lead to paradoxes, including Russell's paradox. To avoid
such paradoxes, the formalism was modified so that a natural number is defined as a particular
set, and any set that can be put into one-to-one correspondence with that set is said to have that
number of elements.[20]
The second class of definitions was introduced by Charles Sanders Peirce, refined by Richard
Dedekind, and further explored by Giuseppe Peano; this approach is now called Peano arithmetic.
It is based on an axiomatization of the properties of ordinal numbers: each natural number has a
successor and every non-zero natural number has a unique predecessor. Peano arithmetic is
equiconsistent with several weak systems of set theory. One such system is ZFC with the axiom of
infinity replaced by its negation. Theorems that can be proved in ZFC but cannot be proved using
the Peano Axioms include Goodstein's theorem.[21]
With all these definitions, it is convenient to include 0 (corresponding to the empty set) as a
natural number. Including 0 is now the common convention among set theorists[22] and
logicians.[23] Other mathematicians also include 0,[a] and computer languages often start from
zero when enumerating items like loop counters and string- or array-elements.[24][25] On the other
hand, many mathematicians have kept the older tradition to take 1 to be the first natural
number.[26]
Notation
Mathematicians use N or to refer to the set of all natural numbers.[1][27] The existence of such a
set is established in set theory. Older texts have also occasionally employed J as the symbol for this
set.[28]
Since different properties are customarily associated to the tokens 0 and 1 (e.g., neutral elements
for addition and multiplications, respectively), it is important to know which version of natural
numbers is employed in the case under consideration. This can be done by explanation in prose,
by explicitly writing down the set, or by qualifying the generic identifier with a super- or
subscript,[3][29] for example, like this:
Naturals without zero:

Naturals with zero:
Alternatively, since the natural numbers naturally form a subset of the integers (often denoted ),
they may be referred to as the positive, or the non-negative integers, respectively.[30]
To be
unambiguous about whether 0 is included or not, sometimes a subscript (or superscript) "0" is
added in the former case, and a superscript "*" is added in the latter case:[3]
Properties
Addition
Given the set of natural numbers and the successor function sending each natural
number to the next one, one can define addition of natural numbers recursively by setting
a + 0 = a and a + S(b) = S(a + b) for all a, b. Then (ℕ, +) is a commutative monoid with identity
element 0. It is a free monoid on one generator. This commutative monoid satisfies the
cancellation property, so it can be embedded in a group. The smallest group containing the natural
numbers is the integers.
If 1 is defined as S(0), then b + 1 = b + S(0) = S(b + 0) = S(b). That is, b + 1 is simply the
successor of b.
Multiplication
Analogously, given that addition has been defined, a multiplication operator can be defined via
a × 0 = 0 and a × S(b) = (a × b) + a. This turns (ℕ*, ×) into a free commutative monoid with
identity element 1; a generator set for this monoid is the set of prime numbers.
Relationship between addition and multiplication
Addition and multiplication are compatible, which is expressed in the distribution law:
a × (b + c) = (a × b) + (a × c). These properties of addition and multiplication make the natural
numbers an instance of a commutative semiring. Semirings are an algebraic generalization of the
natural numbers where multiplication is not necessarily commutative. The lack of additive
inverses, which is equivalent to the fact that ℕ is not closed under subtraction (that is, subtracting
one natural from another does not always result in another natural), means that ℕ is not a ring;
instead it is a semiring (also known as a rig).
If the natural numbers are taken as "excluding 0", and "starting at 1", the definitions of + and × are
as above, except that they begin with a + 1 = S(a) and a × 1 = a.
Order
In this section, juxtaposed variables such as ab indicate the product a × b,[31] and the standard
order of operations is assumed.
A total order on the natural numbers is defined by letting a ≤ b if and only if there exists another
natural number c where a + c = b. This order is compatible with the arithmetical operations in the
following sense: if a, b and c are natural numbers and a ≤ b, then a + c ≤ b + c and ac ≤ bc.
An important property of the natural numbers is that they are well-ordered: every non-empty set
of natural numbers has a least element. The rank among well-ordered sets is expressed by an
ordinal number; for the natural numbers, this is denoted as ω (omega).
Division
In this section, juxtaposed variables such as ab indicate the product a × b, and the standard order
of operations is assumed.
While it is in general not possible to divide one natural number by another and get a natural
number as result, the procedure of division with remainder or Euclidean division is available as a
substitute: for any two natural numbers a and b with b ≠ 0 there are natural numbers q and r such
that
The number q is called the quotient and r is called the remainder of the division of a by b. The
numbers q and r are uniquely determined by a and b. This Euclidean division is key to the several
other properties (divisibility), algorithms (such as the Euclidean algorithm), and ideas in number
theory.
Algebraic properties satisfied by the natural numbers
The addition (+) and multiplication (×) operations on natural numbers as defined above have
several algebraic properties:
Closure under addition and multiplication: for all natural numbers a and b, both a + b and
a × b are natural numbers.[32]
Associativity: for all natural numbers a, b, and c, a + (b + c) = (a + b) + c and
a × (b × c) = (a × b) × c.[33]
Commutativity: for all natural numbers a and b, a + b = b + a and a × b = b × a.[34]
Existence of identity elements: for every natural number a, a + 0 = a and a × 1 = a.
Distributivity of multiplication over addition for all natural numbers a, b, and c,
a × (b + c) = (a × b) + (a × c).
No nonzero zero divisors: if a and b are natural numbers such that a × b = 0, then a = 0 or
b = 0 (or both).
Infinity
The set of natural numbers is an infinite set. By definition, this kind of infinity is called countable
infinity. All sets that can be put into a bijective relation to the natural numbers are said to have this
kind of infinity. This is also expressed by saying that the cardinal number of the set is aleph-
nought (ℵ0).[35]
Generalizations
Two important generalizations of natural numbers arise from the two uses of counting and
ordering: cardinal numbers and ordinal numbers.
A natural number can be used to express the size of a finite set; more precisely, a cardinal
number is a measure for the size of a set, which is even suitable for infinite sets. This concept
of "size" relies on maps between sets, such that two sets have the same size, exactly if there
exists a bijection between them. The set of natural numbers itself, and any bijective image of it,
is said to be countably infinite and to have cardinality aleph-null (ℵ0).
Natural numbers are also used as linguistic ordinal numbers: "first", "second", "third", and so
forth. This way they can be assigned to the elements of a totally ordered finite set, and also to
the elements of any well-ordered countably infinite set. This assignment can be generalized to
general well-orderings with a cardinality beyond countability, to yield the ordinal numbers. An
ordinal number may also be used to describe the notion of "size" for a well-ordered set, in a
sense different from cardinality: if there is an order isomorphism (more than a bijection!)
between two well-ordered sets, they have the same ordinal number. The first ordinal number
that is not a natural number is expressed as ω; this is also the ordinal number of the set of
natural numbers itself.
The least ordinal of cardinality ℵ0 (that is, the initial ordinal of ℵ0) is ω but many well-ordered
sets with cardinal number ℵ0 have an ordinal number greater than ω.
For finite well-ordered sets, there is a one-to-one correspondence between ordinal and cardinal
numbers; therefore they can both be expressed by the same natural number, the number of
elements of the set. This number can also be used to describe the position of an element in a larger
finite, or an infinite, sequence.
A countable non-standard model of arithmetic satisfying the Peano Arithmetic (that is, the first-
order Peano axioms) was developed by Skolem in 1933. The hypernatural numbers are an
uncountable model that can be constructed from the ordinary natural numbers via the ultrapower
construction.
Georges Reeb used to claim provocatively that The naïve integers don't fill up ℕ. Other
generalizations are discussed in the article on numbers.
Formal definitions
Peano axioms
Many properties of the natural numbers can be derived from the five Peano axioms:[36] [i]
1. 0 is a natural number.
2. Every natural number has a successor which is also a natural number.

3. 0 is not the successor of any natural number.
4. If the successor of equals the successor of , then equals .
5. The axiom of induction: If a statement is true of 0, and if the truth of that statement for a
number implies its truth for the successor of that number, then the statement is true for every
natural number.
These are not the original axioms published by Peano, but are named in his honor. Some forms of
the Peano axioms have 1 in place of 0. In ordinary arithmetic, the successor of is .
Replacing axiom 5 by an axiom schema, one obtains a (weaker) first-order theory called Peano
arithmetic.
Constructions based on set theory
Von Neumann ordinals
In the area of mathematics called set theory, a specific construction due to John von
Neumann[37][38] defines the natural numbers as follows:
Set 0 = { }, the empty set,

Define S(a) = a ∪ {a} for every set a. S(a) is the successor of a, and S is called the
successor function.
By the axiom of infinity, there exists a set which contains 0 and is closed under the successor
function. Such sets are said to be inductive. The intersection of all such inductive sets is
defined to be the set of natural numbers. It can be checked that the set of natural numbers
satisfies the Peano axioms.
It follows that each natural number is equal to the set of all natural numbers less than it:
0 = { },
1 = 0 ∪ {0} = {0} = {{ }},
2 = 1 ∪ {1} = {0, 1} = {{ }, {{ }}},
3 = 2 ∪ {2} = {0, 1, 2} = {{ }, {{ }}, {{ }, {{ }}}},
n = n−1 ∪ {n−1} = {0, 1, ..., n−1} = {{ }, {{ }}, ..., {{ }, {{ }}, ...}}, etc.
With this definition, a natural number n is a particular set with n elements, and n ≤ m if and only
if n is a subset of m. The standard definition, now called definition of von Neumann ordinals,
is: "each ordinal is the well-ordered set of all smaller ordinals."
Also, with this definition, different possible interpretations of notations like ℝn (n-tuples versus
mappings of n into ℝ) coincide.
Even if one does not accept the axiom of infinity and therefore cannot accept that the set of all
natural numbers exists, it is still possible to define any one of these sets.
Zermelo ordinals
Although the standard construction is useful, it is not the only possible construction. Ernst
Zermelo's construction goes as follows:[38]
Set 0 = { }
Define S(a) = {a},

It then follows that
0 = { },
1 = {0} = {{ }},
2 = {1} = {{{ }}},
n = {n−1} = {{{...}}}, etc.
Each natural number is then equal to the set containing just the natural number preceding it.
This is the definition of Zermelo ordinals. Unlike von Neumann's construction, the Zermelo
ordinals do not extend to infinite ordinals.
See also
Canonical representation of a positive integer – Representation of a number as a product of
primes
Countable set – Mathematical set that can be enumerated
Ordinal number – Generalization of "n-th" to infinite cases
Cardinal number – Size of a possibly infinite set
Set-theoretic definition of natural numbers
Number systems
Zero: 0
One: 1
Natural
Integer Prime numbers
Composite
Rational numbers
Real Negative integers
Complex
Finite decimal
Fraction Dyadic (finite binary)
Repeating decimal
Algebraic
Irrational
Transcendental
Imaginary
Notes
a. Mac Lane & Birkhoff (1999, p. 15) include zero in the natural numbers: 'Intuitively, the set
of all natural numbers may be described as follows: contains an "initial"
number 0; ...'. They follow that with their version of the Peano's axioms.
b. Carothers (2000, p. 3) says: " is the set of natural numbers (positive integers)" Both
definitions are acknowledged whenever convenient, and there is no general consensus on
whether zero should be included as the natural numbers.[1]
c. Mendelson (2008, p. x) says: "The whole fantastic hierarchy of number systems is built up by
purely set-theoretic means from a few simple assumptions about natural numbers."
d. Bluman (2010, p. 1): "Numbers make up the foundation of mathematics."
e. A tablet found at Kish ... thought to date from around 700 BC, uses three hooks to denote an
empty place in the positional notation. Other tablets dated from around the same time use a
single hook for an empty place.[11]
f. This convention is used, for example, in Euclid's Elements, see D. Joyce's web edition of Book
VII.[15]
g. The English translation is from Gray. In a footnote, Gray attributes the German quote to:
"Weber 1891–1892, 19, quoting from a lecture of Kronecker's of 1886."[18][19]
h. "Much of the mathematical work of the twentieth century has been devoted to examining the
logical foundations and structure of the subject." (Eves 1990, p. 606)
i. Hamilton (1988, pp. 117 ff) calls them "Peano's Postulates" and begins with "1. 0 is a natural
number."
Halmos (1960, p. 46) uses the language of set theory instead of the language of arithmetic for
his five axioms. He begins with "(I) 0 ∈ ω (where, of course, 0 = ∅" (ω is the set of all natural
numbers).
Morash (1991) gives "a two-part axiom" in which the natural numbers begin with 1. (Section
10.1: An Axiomatization for the System of Positive Integers)
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26. This is common in texts about Real analysis. See, for example, Carothers (2000, p. 3) or
Thomson, Bruckner & Bruckner (2000, p. 2).
27. "Listing of the Mathematical Notations used in the Mathematical Functions Website: Numbers,
variables, and functions" (https://functions.wolfram.com/Notations/1/). functions.wolfram.com.
Retrieved 27 July 2020.
28. Rudin, W. (1976). Principles of Mathematical Analysis
(https://archive.org/details/1979RudinW). New York: McGraw-Hill. p. 25. ISBN 978-0-07-
054235-8.
29. Grimaldi, Ralph P. (2004). Discrete and Combinatorial Mathematics: An applied introduction
(5th ed.). Pearson Addison Wesley. ISBN 978-0-201-72634-3.
30. Grimaldi, Ralph P. (2003). A review of discrete and combinatorial mathematics (5th ed.).
Boston: Addison-Wesley. p. 133. ISBN 978-0-201-72634-3.
31. Weisstein, Eric W. "Multiplication" (https://mathworld.wolfram.com/Multiplication.html).
mathworld.wolfram.com. Retrieved 27 July 2020.
32. Fletcher, Harold; Howell, Arnold A. (9 May 2014). Mathematics with Understanding (https://boo
ks.google.com/books?id=7cPSBQAAQBAJ&q=Natural+numbers+closed&pg=PA116). Elsevier.
p. 116. ISBN 978-1-4832-8079-0. "...the set of natural numbers is closed under addition... set
of natural numbers is closed under multiplication"
33. Davisson, Schuyler Colfax (1910). College Algebra (https://books.google.com/books?id=E7oZ
AAAAYAAJ&q=Natural+numbers+associative&pg=PA2). Macmillian Company. p. 2. "Addition
of natural numbers is associative."
34. Brandon, Bertha (M.); Brown, Kenneth E.; Gundlach, Bernard H.; Cooke, Ralph J. (1962).
Laidlaw mathematics series (https://books.google.com/books?id=xERMAQAAIAAJ&q=Natural
+numbers+commutative). Vol. 8. Laidlaw Bros. p. 25.
35. Weisstein, Eric W. "Cardinal Number" (https://mathworld.wolfram.com/CardinalNumber.html).
MathWorld.
36. Mints, G.E. (ed.). "Peano axioms" (http://www.encyclopediaofmath.org/index.php/Peano_axio
ms). Encyclopedia of Mathematics. Springer, in cooperation with the European Mathematical
Society. Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20141013163028/http://www.encyclopediaofma
th.org/index.php/Peano_axioms) from the original on 13 October 2014. Retrieved 8 October
2014.
37. von Neumann (1923)
38. Levy (1979), p. 52 attributes the idea to unpublished work of Zermelo in 1916 and several
papers by von Neumann the 1920s.
Bibliography
Bluman, Allan (2010). Pre-Algebra DeMYSTiFieD (https://books.google.com/books?id=oRLc9r
4bmSgC) (Second ed.). McGraw-Hill Professional. ISBN 978-0-07-174251-1 – via Google
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Dedekind, Richard (1901). Essays on the Theory of Numbers (https://www.gutenberg.org/e
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LLC. ISBN 978-0-548-08985-9.
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books?id=PXvwAAAAMAAJ) (6th ed.). Thomson. ISBN 978-0-03-029558-4 – via Google
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q=peano+axioms&pg=PP1). Springer Science & Business Media. ISBN 978-0-387-90092-6 –
via Google Books.
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WT38C&q=peano%27s+postulates) (Revised ed.). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-
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Mac Lane, Saunders; Birkhoff, Garrett (1999). Algebra (https://books.google.com/books?id=L6
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(https://books.google.com/books?id=fH9YAAAAYAAJ) (Second ed.). Mcgraw-Hill College.
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Musser, Gary L.; Peterson, Blake E.; Burger, William F. (2013). Mathematics for Elementary
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Szczepanski, Amy F.; Kositsky, Andrew P. (2008). The Complete Idiot's Guide to Pre-algebra
(https://books.google.com/books?id=wLA2tlR_LYYC). Penguin Group. ISBN 978-1-59257-772-
9 – via Google Books.
Thomson, Brian S.; Bruckner, Judith B.; Bruckner, Andrew M. (2008). Elementary Real
Analysis (https://books.google.com/books?id=vA9d57GxCKgC) (Second ed.).
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von Neumann, John (1923). "Zur Einführung der transfiniten Zahlen" (https://web.archive.org/w
eb/20141218090535/http://acta.fyx.hu/acta/showCustomerArticle.action?id=4981&dataObjectT
ype=article&returnAction=showCustomerVolume&sessionDataSetId=39716d660ae98d02&styl
e=) [On the Introduction of the Transfinite Numbers]. Acta Litterarum AC Scientiarum Ragiae
Universitatis Hungaricae Francisco-Josephinae, Sectio Scientiarum Mathematicarum. 1: 199–
208. Archived from the original (http://acta.fyx.hu/acta/showCustomerArticle.action?id=4981&d
ataObjectType=article&returnAction=showCustomerVolume&sessionDataSetId=39716d660ae
98d02&style=) on 18 December 2014. Retrieved 15 September 2013.
von Neumann, John (January 2002) [1923]. "On the introduction of transfinite numbers" (http://
www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=978-0674324497). In van Heijenoort, Jean (ed.).
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External links
"Natural number" (https://www.encyclopediaofmath.org/index.php?title=Natural_number),
Encyclopedia of Mathematics, EMS Press, 2001 [1994]
"Axioms and construction of natural numbers" (http://www.apronus.com/provenmath/naturalaxi
oms.htm). apronus.com.
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2/19/22, 10:47 PM Natural number - Wikipedia

The natural numbers are a basis from which many other

Properties of the natural numbers, such as divisibility and the

(standard Roman numerals do not have a symbol for 0). Instead,

The first systematic study of numbers as abstractions is usually

Independent studies on numbers also occurred at around the same

Set-theoretical definitions of natural numbers were initiated by Frege. He initially defined a

Naturals without zero:

Relationship between addition and multiplication

Algebraic properties satisfied by the natural numbers

2. Every natural number has a successor which is also a natural number.

Constructions based on set theory

Von Neumann ordinals

Set 0 = { }, the empty set,

Define S(a) = {a},

9. "The Ishango Bone, Democratic Republic of the Congo" (https://web.archive.org/web/2014111

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Natural_number&oldid=1070054143"

This page was last edited on 5 February 2022, at 12:14 (UTC).

Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0;

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