• Kogasa@programming.dev
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      6 months ago

      There can’t really be an argument either way. It’s just a matter of convention. “Natural” is just a name, it’s not meant to imply that 1 is somehow more fundamental than -1, so arguing that 0 is “natural” is beside the point

    • Collatz_problem [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      6 months ago

      If we add it as natural number, half of number theory, starting from fundamental theorem of arithmetics, would have to replace “all natural numbers” with “all natural numbers, except zero”.

      • pooberbee (any)@lemmy.ml
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        6 months ago

        Prime factorization starts at 2, I’m not sure what you mean. Anyway, if you wanted to exclude 0 you could say “positive integers”, it’s not that hard.