Natural numbers

Leopold Kronecker

Natural numbers were created by God, everything else is the work of men.

Natural numbers are the numbers that we use to count. They are the set of numbers where there is the notion of a “next” number. For example, the scribble is the next number after the scribble . A careful formal definition of natural numbers requires some delicacy, and the curious reader might want to investigate the Peano axioms defining natural numbers axiomatically.

To write natural numbers we commonly use decimal notations. It is important to note that positions, and digits are not something inherent but added on top of natural numbers as a notation.