1
$\begingroup$

Possible Duplicate:
Is 0 a natural number?

There seems to be no consensus, although perhaps one is gathering over the centuries to say yes to the first question and identify $\mathbb{N}$ with $\omega$ : the set of finite Von Neumann ordinal numbers. That leaves $\textbf{N}$ = {$1$, $2$, ...} for the counting numbers (who counts with $0$?). You can dodge the issue by writing $\mathbb{Z}_{\geq0}$, $\mathbb{Z}_+$, etc., but it seems awkward to use derived and complicated notation for something so basic.

  • 1
    The only programming language known to me that does _not_ count from$0$is the one used in Matlab. In fact, indexing arrays from 1 makes little to no sense. In CS, typically $\mathbb{N} = \{0, 1, \dots\}$ is used.2010-12-12

0 Answers 0