What kind of number is -5? Is it rational or something like that?

2 answers:

6 0

ANSWER
-5 is a real number, a rational number, and an integer

EXPLANATION
Rational number are numbers which you can write as a quotient of two integers. Integers are non-decimal numbers that can be positive or negative. We can therefore write -5 as -5 divided by 1 (-5/1) and thus classify -5 as rational.

In fact, you can classify -5 into other categories.

-5 is all of the following
⇒ it is a real number
⇒ it is a rational number
⇒ it is an integer

Whole numbers can be considered as {0, 1, 2, 3, ...}
Natural numbers can be considered as {1,2,3,...}

so -5 is not a whole or natural number.

$\boxed{ \begin{array}{l r} \textbf{real numbers } (\mathbb{R}) \\ \boxed{ \begin{array}{l} \textbf{rational numbers } (\mathbb{Q}) \\ \boxed{ \begin{array}{l} \textbf{integers } (\mathbb{Z})\\ \boxed{ \begin{array}{l} \text{\footnotesize whole numbers ($\mathbb{W}$)} \\ \boxed{ \begin{array}{l} \text{\scriptsize natural numbers ($\mathbb{N}$)} \end{array}} \end{array}} \end{array}} \end{array}} & \boxed{ \begin{array}{c} \text{irrational numbers} \\ \ \\ \ \\ \ \\ \ \end{array}} \end{array}}$