What is a Natural Number?
The set of positive integers are termed as natural numbers. The natural numbers can be represented as a continuous number line shown below:
What is the purpose of a natural number?
The natural number is used for two major purposes. They are:
• Counting – Natural numbers are used for counting set of items and expressing the size of the set. For example, how many fingers are there in your hands? There are ten fingers in my hand. Basically, you are counting the fingers to give the answer.
• Ordering - When there are set of items, organizing them based on some priority is known as ordering. For example, John is the second tallest person in the class. In this statement, you are ordering the students based on their height and you indicate that John is the second tallest person.
Is Zero a Natural Number?
Many people have a question if zero is a natural number. There is no definite answer for this question. Many people say that natural numbers are set of positive integers ranging from 1, 2, 3, etc. Many others claim natural numbers definition as set of all non-negative integers. Non-negative integers are 0, 1, 2, 3, etc.
In general, the set of non-negative integers are termed as whole numbers and the set of positive integers are termed as natural numbers.
Natural Numbers Examples
To workout an example for natural numbers, answer the following question:
Which of the following are natural numbers?
a. -67
b. 1/4
c. 0
d. 85
The answer for the above question is “d. 85”. To know how the answer is obtained, let us analyze each of the above choices:
• Choice “a” is -67. This is a negative integer. Only positive integers can be natural numbers, hence -67 is not a natural number.
• Choice “b” is 1/4. Any two integers N1, N2 that are represented by N1 / N2 are termed as rational numbers and not natural numbers.
• Choice “c” is 0. As discussed above, 0 is part of whole numbers and not natural numbers.
• Choice “d” is 85. 85 is a valid positive integer, hence 85 is a natural number.
When you deal with natural numbers, ask the question for yourself: What are natural numbers? The answer that you should be clear with is: Natural numbers are nothing but positive integers.
