What's "Integer," Precious?

In short, an integer is just a number. It must be a whole number (not a fraction, or decimal) and integers can be negative.

Examples of POSITIVE integers: 1, 2, 3, 40, 100, 3,429, 62, 7, 1,000,000

Examples of NEGATIVE integers: -1, -4, -67, -100, -1000, -5,673, -12

Let's do an exercise now. We'll see if you can locate integers, and weed out the ones that aren't integers at all!
EXERCISE 1: Is This An Integer??

1. 1

2. 66

3. 5½

4. -7

5. 7

6. 7.7

7. one thousand

8. -2¼

9. 0

10. negative one

Your answers, M'ladies and M'lords:

1. Yes (1 is a whole number)

2. Yes (66 is a whole number)

3. No (Half of something means that you need the other half to complete it, it being that whole number!)

4. Yes (-7 is negative, but is also whole)

5. Yes (7 is a whole number)

6. No (7.7 has a decimal, meaning the number is incomplete and not whole)

7. Yes (I wrote it out in words, not a number, but that doesn't change 1000 from being whole)

8. No (A fourth is a fraction, meaning it's not a whole number)

9. Yes (0 can be confusing because zero is neither negative nor positive, but it is whole

10. Yes (If you write negative one in number, -1, you can easily see it is a whole number)

factmonster.com has given us an interesting set of facts and explanations regarding integers.

That's all the in(teger)formation you get today! If you want to see more about integers, have a good definition, or found a funny integer pic you want to share here on the blog, shoot me an email at: artfromnike@gmail.com