Content
The integer numbers They are those that express a complete unit, so that they do not have an integer part and a decimal part. Eventually the whole numbers can be thought of as fractions whose denominator is the number one.
When we are little they try to teach us mathematics with an approach to reality and they tell us that whole numbers they represent what exists around us but cannot be divided (people, balls, chairs, etc.), while the decimal numbers represent what can be divided in the desired way (sugar, water, distance to a place).
This explanation is somewhat simplistic and incomplete, since the integers also include, for example, negative numbers, that escape this approach. Integers also belong to a larger category: they are in turn rational, real and complex.
Examples of whole numbers
Here several integers are listed as an example, also clarifying the way in which they should be named with words in Spanish:
- 430 (four hundred thirty)
- 12 (twelve)
- 2.711 (two thousand seven hundred eleven)
- 1 (one)
- -32 (minus thirty two)
- 1.000 (one thousand)
- 1.500.040 (one million five hundred thousand forty)
- -1 (minus one)
- 932 (nine hundred thirty two)
- 88 (eighty-eight)
- 1.000.000.000.000 (a billion)
- 52 (fifty-two
- -1.000.000 (minus a million)
- 666 (six hundred sixty six)
- 7.412 (seven thousand four hundred twelve)
- 4 (four)
- -326 (minus three hundred twenty-six)
- 15 (fifteen)
- 0 (zero)
- 99 (ninety nine)
characteristics
Whole numbers represent the most elementary tool of mathematical calculation. The easier operations (like addition and subtraction) can be done without problem with the only knowledge of the integers, both positive and negative.
Further,any operation involving whole numbers will result in a number that also belongs to that category. The same goes for the multiplication, but not so with division: in fact, any division involving both odd and even numbers (among many other possibilities) will necessarily result in a number that is not an integer.
Whole numbers they have an infinite extension, both forward (on a line that shows the numbers, to the right, adding more and more digits each time) and backward (to the left of that same number line, after passing through 0 and adding digits preceded by the "minus" sign.
Knowing the integers, one of the basic postulates of mathematics can be easily interpreted: 'for any number, there will always be a greater number', From which it follows that' for any number, there will always be infinitely many greater numbers'.
On the contrary, the same does not happen with another of the postulates that demands the understanding of the fractional numbers: 'Between any two numbers, there will always be a number'. From the latter it also follows that there will be infinities.
As for his way of written expression, the whole numbers greater than a thousand are usually written by placing a period or leaving a fine space every three digits, starting from the right. This is different in the English language, in which commas are used instead of periods to separate the units of a thousand, with points being reserved precisely for numbers that include decimals (that is, non-integers).
