• affiliate@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    the standard (set theoretic) construction of the natural numbers starts with 0 (the empty set) and then builds up the other numbers from there. so to me it seems “natural” to include it in the set of natural numbers.

    • Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      7 months ago

      On top of that, I don’t think it’s particularly useful to have 2 different easy shorthands for the positive integers, when it means that referring to the union of the positive integers and the singleton of 0 becomes cumbersome as a result.