CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION TO THE NUMBERS

PREPARED BY : C.F.TAN (MSC)

Real Number and Their Properties

The idea of counting goes back to the early days of civilization. When people first counted they used the natural numbers, written in the set notation as:
More recent is the ideal of counting no object, the ideal of the number 0. Including 0 with the set of natural number gives the set of whole numbers,

 Later, people came up with the idea of counting backward, for example from 4 to 3 to 2 to 1 to 0. There seemed no reason not to continue this process, calling the new numbers, -1 , -2 , -3 and so on. Including these numbers with the set of whole numbers gives the very useful set of integers, If m and n are two integers, i.e. , with , we can write a number in the form of

 The set which consists of all numbers in the form with , and , is called the set of rational number,

Notice that any integer, , may be written as . For examples, Thus, every integer is a rational number and, hence, is a subset of . A rational number is usually called a fraction.

 Numbers which are not rational number are known as irrational numbers. Irrational numbers are often found in the solution of algebraic equations. For examples, The set of natural numbers, integers, rational numbers and set of irrational numbers are the subset of the set of real number. We can represent real numbers on a straight line called the real number line. The line consist of an arbitrary point, 0 , called the origin. The set of positive numbers lie to the right of 0 and the set of negative numbers lie to the left of the 0, as shown below.

Properties of Real Numbers

1. Closure Law For any two real numbers, the operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division (except division by 0) results in another real number.

2. Commutative Law In the addition or multiplication of any two different numbers, the order of the numbers is immaterial. For example, . Thus, the operations of addition and multiplication are said to be commutative.

3.

Associative Law

Notice that

and

Thus, the operation of addition and multiplication are said to be associative.

4.

Distribution Law
In algebra, we often have to expand or factorize an expression. We say that the operation of multiplication is distributive with respect to addition and subtraction.

5.

Identity Law

The set of real number, contains two numbers ,i.e. 0 and

1(identity elements). 0 being the identity with respect to addition and 1 the identity with respect to multiplication.

6.

Inverse Law
For each real number called the inverse of , there exists another real number , such that the operations of addition

and multiplication result in their identity elements respectively.

7.

Order Law The real number system is an orderly system, for example, the real number an ascending order, i.e. and can be rearranged in and .

Example 1: The binary operation * on is define as follows. For , . (a) prove that * is associative. (b) determine if * is distributive with respect to addition.

Example 2: Solve the equation real number properties used.

by determining the

Real Number Interval

In general, for any two different numbers , and with , the open interval is defined as the set ,

For the closed interval is defined as the set

Absolute Values
The absolute value of a real number , is the positive number having the same magnitude as , is written as . For example, and .

Example 3: Find the possible value of if (a) (b)

Complex Numbers
If , then is not a real number and cannot be represented as a point on the real number line. How do we solve problems such as this? In this section, we are going to introduce a new number , where . In general,

The sum of a real number , with an imaginary number , , results in the form ,which is called a complex number in the Cartesian form. The set of complex numbers , is defined as

Example 4: (a) Express (b) Simplify in the form of . .

EXERCISES 1: