Zero Discussion

  • Thread starter Deleted member 4993
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k could not be either of those values above, because "n" is used for integers. That definition is faulty, because it contains a necessary condition,
but not a sufficient condition. So, that definition cannot even be considered.

I wouldn't say this. It is not true that "n" necessarily refers to an integer, though that is common; what is faulty is that k is only stated to be a "number", which is too broad a category for the definition. (Can it even be a complex number? "Number" isn't really defined at all.) Also, of course, it is not k but n that is said to be even (and that the two weird numbers are examples of). It claims, by the double arrow, to present a necessary and sufficient condition; it just isn't precise enough to be a definition (in addition to not matching actual usage).

But I think it's clear that this "definition" was presented as a straw man, not as a serious proposal.


This page contains a lot of good arguments (in the logical sense) supporting the fact that zero should be considered even (while admitting that this is a convention), as well as ideas about why people argue about it (in the emotional sense). Thanks for calling our attention to it.
 
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lOOkagain and jOmO are better equipped than the rest of us...
 
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