What are Natural Numbers and Whole Numbers?
Natural numbers are the numbers that you "naturally" use for counting:
1, 2, 3, 4, ...
The set of whole numbers is the set of natural numbers including zero:
0, 1, 2, 3, 4, ...
Whole numbers belong to a number system called the base ten number system. The number system is referred to as "base ten" because when you count, you usually count in groups of ten.
Place-Value Table : When you want to compare two numbers, it is useful to use a place-value table. You can also use it to help you visualize how large a number is.
The following is an example of a place-value table:
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Millions
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Thousands
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Hundreds
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Millions Thousands Hundreds
Notice that there are three categories.
• These categories represent breaks in large numbers and are always separated by a comma.
Within each of these categories, there are three sub-categories:
units, tens, and hundreds.
Another important feature of the place-value table is that each column or sub-category contains a single digit (1 or 2 or 3, etc....)
In summary:
a. The 1st column is called the "units" column, and represents the following numbers:
(0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
b. The 2nd column is called the "tens" column, and represents the following numbers:
(10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90)
c. The 3rd column is called the "hundreds" column, and represents the following numbers:
(100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 800, 900)
Example: Put 15,622,396 in a place-value table.
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Millions
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Thousands
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Hundreds
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1
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5
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6
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2
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2
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3
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9
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6
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Millions Thousands Hundreds
1 5 6 2 2 3 9 6
15,622,396 is written "fifteen million six hundred twenty-two thousand three hundred ninety six."