Talk:Whole number

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents

[edit] Integers and Whole Numbers

My son has a problem in his math homework that we are trying to figure out. It asks what the error is in the following statement: Jeff says that every whole number is an integer and that every integer is a whole number. Explain the error.Smcnell 03:40, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

"Because -1 is an integer but not a whole number." That's what I would write. --Ed Smilde
Every pig is a mammall but not every mammal is a pig --woot

[edit] Dispute

If there's dispute in the mathematical world as to the meaning of "whole number", why do we present one view as correct? WP:NPOV, anyone? Proteus (Talk) 12:52, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Nonsense

This Wikipedia page is completely screwed up. There's absolutely no dispute about the definition of a whole number. Whole number is an integer, which includes 0, all positive and all negative integers. Any decent book on math defines whole numbers in that manner.

There was a well-known dispute about whether 0 should be included into the definition of a 'natural' number. But there has never been a dispute about excluding negative integers from the definition of a 'whole' number.

whole number

whole number Mathematics. Any of the set of numbers including zero and all negative and positive multiples of 1.

Excerpted from The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition Copyright © 1992 by Houghton Mifflin Company.

In my country, Canada, we are taught that whole numbers are 0, 1, 2, 3, ... so obviously there are different definitions out there, and hence "dispute".
The numbers you refer to are called integers. Why would we need another official name for the integers? 207.189.230.42 20:09, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
There is indeed disagreement. In my Irish primary school, the whole numbers were given as 0,1,2,3.... My mathematics dictionary (James & James) gives all three definitions, with 0,1,2,3,... as the first.--Malcohol 11:03, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Not Screwed

The definition for whole number's just happens to be short. It's as simple as 0,1,2,3 etc. 24.12.8.97 20:46, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Whole Numbers does not equal Natural numbers

This is high school stuff... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.99.190.231 (talk) 06:18, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Not everything they teach you in high school is necessarily the last word on the subject. Might as well get used to that early :-). --Trovatore 06:21, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.99.190.231 (talk) 23:19, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Whole numbers include 0, natural numbers don't

In primary school (United States) I was taught that there was a difference between Whole numbers, natural numbers, and integers. Natural numbers were {1, 2, ...}, whole numbers were {0, 1, 2, ...} and integers were {... -1, 0, 1, ...} - it seems like we should mention this distinction on this page unless it was unique to my education. Scott Ritchie (talk) 23:14, 24 November 2007 (UTC)