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The natural numbers are part of the integers, which are part of the rationals, which are part of the reals, which are part of the complex numbers. |
Numbers can be classified into sets called number systems. The most familiar numbers are the natural numbers, which to some mean the non-negative integers and to others mean the positive integers. In everyday parlance the non-negative integers are commonly referred to as whole numbers, the positive integers as counting numbers, symbolised by .
The integers consist of the natural numbers (positive whole numbers and zero) combined with the negative whole numbers, which are symolised by (from the German Zahl, meaning "number").
A rational number is a number that can be expressed as a fraction with an integer numerator and a non-zero natural number denominator. Fractions can be positive, negative, or zero. The set of all fractions includes the integers, since every integer can be written as a fraction with denominator 1. The symbol for the rational numbers is a bold face (for quotient).
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