Next: Construction of Z
Up: What are numbers?
 Previous: Construction of the Number 
 
-   
 
 -  if  
  then  
 
 -  N is the smallest possible set such that the preceding rules hold.
 
Informally  
  (thus  
 ,  
 ,  
 ,
 
 ). We will refer to the elements of N by giving them a
subscript . The relation  
  on N is defined as:  
  iff
 
 . We can define  
  as follows:
Define  
  as:
 
Alex Lopez-Ortiz 
Mon Feb 23 16:26:48 EST 1998