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Natural numbers are always integers.

Which is statements are correct? (There's 4)
1. All whole numbers are natural.
2. Rational numbers are sometimes whole numbers.
3. Integers are always natural numbers.
4. Irrational numbers are always rational.
5. Rational numbers are sometimes irrational.
6. Rational numbers are never irrational.
7. Integers are always rational numbers.

User Yulan  Liu
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2 Answers

1 vote

Answers: statements 1, 2, 6 and 7

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Step-by-step explanation:

I'll briefly go through each statement to mention why it's true or false.

  1. This one is a bit tricky. Some math books define the natural numbers to be N = {1, 2, 3, ...} where 0 isn't included, while other textbooks include 0. The inclusion/exclusion of zero seems arbitrary and depends on other context of the math theorems used. The set of whole numbers is more consistent and it is W = {0, 1, 2, 3, ...} basically it's the definition of natural numbers where 0 is included. So if 0 is defined to be a natural number in your textbook, then statement 1 is true. Otherwise, it's false.
  2. This is true. A rational number like 2/3 isn't a whole number, but something like 3/1 = 3 is a whole number. Any whole number can be written as itself over 1.
  3. This is false. An integer like -7 is not in the set of natural numbers.
  4. This is false. The very definition of "irrational" means "not rational". The two types of numbers are complete opposites. An irrational number is one where we cannot write it as a ratio of integers. A famous example is pi = 3.14... as we can't write it as a fraction of integers. An approximation could be something like 22/7, but we don't capture the full picture of what pi really is.
  5. This is false. Refer to question 4 above. The set of rational numbers vs irrational numbers do not overlap at all.
  6. This is true. Refer to questions 4 and 5.
  7. This is true. We can write any integer as itself over 1. For example, the integer -12 is the same as -12/1 to show that it is rational. This idea is similar to what I mentioned in question 2.

After going through all seven statements, we definitely know that statements 2, 6, 7 are true. Statements 3,4,5 are definitely false.

Statement 1 is the only thing left. If your teacher mentioned 4 true statements, then statement 1 has to be true. This in turn means that your teacher is defining 0 to be a natural number.

User Gbn
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2 votes
The true statements are 1,2,6,7
User Tarmil
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