Posted by Joel on October 25, 2002 at 17:57:57:
In Reply to: you already asked this on the other forum and it was answered correctly -nt- posted by T.Gracken on October 25, 2002 at 11:35:51:
: : Itīs 0 a natural number?
: : Thanks.
I didn't notice this question on the other board. If I had, I probably would have abstained. But having entered the abyss, I'd like to report that when I answered the question I was merely reporting the opinions of the authors (Susanna Epp and Kenneth Rosen) of both of the Discrete Math textbooks that I'm using this semester, both of whom include 0 in their definitions of natural numbers. Rosen does say that "some people do not consider 0 a natural numbers..."; apparently he uses the word "some" rather loosely.
On the other hand, it is clear that the set of people who kowtow to the NCTM is somewhat smaller than the set of all mathematicians.
Perhaps Eric Weisstein has the best idea. His suggestion basically boils down to - don't use that word. There are some references on his web site for anyone who wants to look further...