Science Memes

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Zero to hero (mander.xyz)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago (3 children)

It is a natural number. Is there an argument for it not being so?

[–] [email protected] 21 points 8 months ago (2 children)

no it's not

[–] [email protected] 21 points 8 months ago

Well I’m convinced. That was a surprisingly well reasoned video.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago

Thanks for linking this video! It lays out all of the facts nicely, so you can come to your own decision

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

There can't really be an argument either way. It's just a matter of convention. "Natural" is just a name, it's not meant to imply that 1 is somehow more fundamental than -1, so arguing that 0 is "natural" is beside the point

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

If we add it as natural number, half of number theory, starting from fundamental theorem of arithmetics, would have to replace "all natural numbers" with "all natural numbers, except zero".

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Prime factorization starts at 2, I'm not sure what you mean. Anyway, if you wanted to exclude 0 you could say "positive integers", it's not that hard.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

1 also has a unique 'empty' prime factorization, while zero has none.
You can also say "nonnegative integers", if you want to include zero.