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From: "Chad R. Meiners" <crmeiners@hotmail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Natural data type ?
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 21:57:22 -0500
Organization: Michigan State University
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Date: 2002-03-26T21:57:22-05:00
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No misprint.  The natural numbers can be define as containing zero as well
as not containing zero.  I know a good deal of mathematicians that define N
to include zero; I also know a good deal of mathematicians that prefer N to
only include positive whole numbers (zero is neither positive nor negative).

-CRM

"Peter I. Hansen" <pih@oek.dk> wrote in message
news:3CA12AD4.2030807@oek.dk...
> Hello
>
> I'm new to Ada and I'm reading a book by Feldman & Koffman.
> Now I see that the datatype 'Natural' is the integers {0,1,2,3,4,...},
> and type Positive is {1,2,3,4,5,....}. I know this is all akademic, but
> why this definition.
> We learn in mathematics that the natural numbers are positive integers
> not including zero..., So to me the 'Natural' way of defining these
> datatypes would be :
>
> Natural :  {1,2,3,4,5, ... }
> Positive : {0,1,2,3,4, ... }
>
> Am I all wrong here or have I stumbled across a misprint ???
>
> /Peter
>