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2 Integers and rational numbers 2.1 The integers The integers are familiar to us from elementary arithmetic, but here we shall want to express that familiarity in precise terms. We do this by writing down a list of properties which the integers posses and on which we shall base all our deductions. Later, in Vol.2, we shall see that all the properties listed here can actually be deduced from quite a brief list of axioms, but this is immaterial at present. We denote the set of positive integers (also called natural numbers) 1,2,3...by N and write Z for the set of all integers, positive, negative, and zero. Here N stands for number and Z for Zahl, the German for number; both abbreviations are generally used in mathematics (see Appendix 2 ). The set z admits three operations: addition, x+y, subtraction, x-y,and multiplication, x.y, or xy.Often it is convenient to express subtraction by adding the negative:x-y=x+(-y). These operations are connected by the following laws. Z.1 Associative law: (x+y)+z=x+(y+z), (xy)z=x(yz). Z.2 Commutative law: x+y=y+x, xy=yx. Z.3 Existence of neutral element:x+0=x, x1=x. Z.4 Existence of (additive) inverse: x+(-x)=0. The number 0 is said to be neutral for addition because adding it to any number x leaves x unchanged; likewise 1 is neutral for multiplication. Every number x has the additive inverse -x (which undoes the effort of adding x), but apart from 1 and -1, no integer has a multiplicative inverse. However we shall find such inverse once we come to consider rational numbers in 2.4. In addition to the above laws, there is a further law, relating addition and multiplication: Z.5 Distributive law: x(y+z)=xy+xz. A set R with two operations x+y,xy and a negative -x, satisfying Z.1-5 is called a ring;more precisely it is commutative ring (because the multiplication is commutative,cf.Ex.(1) ,6.1). Thus the set Z of all integers is a commutative ring.However, these laws are not yet sufficient to determine Z; in Ch.6