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Twenty years ago, John Conway wrote a story about a man named Sierpinski, showing that the natural way to count is to start with 0, not 1. Conway looks forward so hard to the day children learn to start counting with 0. Is Conway really expecting such a day?? (See the following URL for the story):
http://mathforum.org/kb/thread.jspa?forumID=13&threadID=31703&messageID=129435
Georgia guy ( talk) 15:43, 27 October 2015 (UTC)
The ordinal numbers: first, second, third and so on, are not subject to calculations in the same way as the cardinal numbers: zero, one, two, three and so on. That is why programmers name the (cardinal) number of items to be skipped before reaching the interesting item, rather than naming the (ordinal) number of the interesting item. If you skip three items you reach the fourth item. Bo Jacoby ( talk) 07:42, 1 November 2015 (UTC).
Mathematics desk | ||
---|---|---|
< October 26 | << Sep | October | Nov >> | October 28 > |
Welcome to the Wikipedia Mathematics Reference Desk Archives |
---|
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages. |
Twenty years ago, John Conway wrote a story about a man named Sierpinski, showing that the natural way to count is to start with 0, not 1. Conway looks forward so hard to the day children learn to start counting with 0. Is Conway really expecting such a day?? (See the following URL for the story):
http://mathforum.org/kb/thread.jspa?forumID=13&threadID=31703&messageID=129435
Georgia guy ( talk) 15:43, 27 October 2015 (UTC)
The ordinal numbers: first, second, third and so on, are not subject to calculations in the same way as the cardinal numbers: zero, one, two, three and so on. That is why programmers name the (cardinal) number of items to be skipped before reaching the interesting item, rather than naming the (ordinal) number of the interesting item. If you skip three items you reach the fourth item. Bo Jacoby ( talk) 07:42, 1 November 2015 (UTC).