what is a whole number?

not a fraction. 5 is a whole number. So is 1, 2, 3, 10, 48, etc. Any number that doesn't have a fraction attached to it.
So 5 1/2 is NOT a whole number. 8 3/4 is not a whole number.
4 1/4 is not a whole number, and so on.

2007-01-19 05:44:42 · answer #1 · answered by MOM KNOWS EVERYTHING 7 · 1⤊ 2⤋

a whole number is a number with no decimal at the end or a fraction at the end. 1.3 is NOT a whole number nor is 1 3/10. 13 IS a whole number. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 ETC ARE WHOLE NUMBER AS ARE THEIR NEGATIVE COUNTER PARTS

EA- -1 -2 -3 -4 -5 -6 -7 -8 -9 -10

2007-01-19 06:26:26 · answer #2 · answered by falconfan694 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋

Good question. The answer is as follows: It consists of a system of axioms for the natural number system (not including zero), first formulated by the mathematician Peano:

A set of numbers is called a natural number system if it has the following characteristics:
1. It contains an element called 1
2. For every member in the system, there is another member (and only one) called its successor.
3. Two distenct members do not have the same successor.
4. There is no member of the system that has 1 as its successor (this is the characteristic that rules out zero).
5. If a set of elements belonging to the system contains 1, and, for each member that it contains, also contains its successor, then this set contains the whole system.

This is the mathematical definition of the whole number system.

2007-01-19 06:24:57 · answer #3 · answered by 1ofSelby's 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋

A whole number is what we usually think of numbers as: those not with decimal points.

e.g. ... -3, -2, 1, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 .... going on forever both ways are whole numbers

2007-01-19 06:28:01 · answer #4 · answered by ღ♥ღ latoya 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋

The term whole number is used differently by different authors. It may mean:

The set of non-negative integers
{0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5...}

The complete set of integers
{...-5, -4, -3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5...}

In either case it would be numbers that don't have a fractional amount.

2007-01-19 05:59:27 · answer #5 · answered by Puzzling 7 · 1⤊ 1⤋

Any number that does not have a fraction or decimal equivalent of a fraction.
Here are exaples of whole numbers:

1 2 48,566

Here are some numbers that are not whole numbers:

1.23 3/4 3.1415926 456.26

2007-01-19 05:47:22 · answer #6 · answered by Surveyor 5 · 0⤊ 1⤋

A whole number is one which starts from 0 to infiniti.It cannot be decimal or negative number.

2007-01-19 05:47:11 · answer #7 · answered by Eshwar 5 · 1⤊ 2⤋

a number that cant be divided in to 2

2007-01-19 05:46:46 · answer #8 · answered by lashonda h 1 · 0⤊ 3⤋

a number that cannot be divided in to 2

I think

2007-01-19 06:07:09 · answer #9 · answered by davie 2 · 0⤊ 3⤋

Any number that isn't a fraction.

2007-01-19 09:18:59 · answer #10 · answered by Elaine 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋

what is a whole number?

14 answers