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10 points

It is a natural number. Is there an argument for it not being so?

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21 points
21 points

Well I’m convinced. That was a surprisingly well reasoned video.

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7 points

Thanks for linking this video! It lays out all of the facts nicely, so you can come to your own decision

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4 points

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

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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”.

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1 point

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.

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1 also has a unique ‘empty’ prime factorization, while zero has none.
You can also say “nonnegative integers”, if you want to include zero.

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