What is a Number?

A number is a mathematical value used for counting or measuring or labelling objects. Numbers are used to performing arithmetic calculations.  Examples of numbers are natural numbers, whole numbers, rational and irrational numbers, etc. 0 is also a number that represents a null value. 

A number has many other variations such as even and odd numbers, prime and composite numbers. Even and odd terms are used when a number is divisible by 2 or not, whereas prime and composite differentiate between the numbers that have only two factors and more than two factors, respectively.

In a number system, these numbers are used as digits. 0 and 1 are the most common digits in the number system, that are used to represent binary numbers. On the other hand, 0 to 9 digits are also used for other number systems. Let us learn here the types of number systems.

Types of Number System

There are various types of number systems in mathematics. The four most common number system types are:

  1. Decimal number system (Base- 10)
  2. Binary number system (Base- 2)
  3. Octal number system (Base-8)
  4. Hexadecimal number system (Base- 16)