Small Number

Small Number

Within a set of positive numbers, a number is small if it is close to zero. A number is smaller if it is less than another number.

Within a set of positive and negative numbers there is ambiguity, because being closer to zero does not correspond to being less, but to being less in absolute value. Depending on context a negative number may be called "smaller" if it is closer to zero, or if it is more negative.

This article deals with positive numbers, and is also applicable to negative numbers by taking the absolute value.

Small numbers are numbers that are small compared with the numbers used in everyday life. Very small numbers often occur in fields such as chemistry, electronics and quantum physics.

Read more about Small Number:  Fractions, Tiny Numbers in Science, Extremely Small Numbers, Infinitesimals

Famous quotes containing the words small and/or number:

    That sort of half sigh, which, accompanied by two or three slight nods of the head, is pity’s small change in general society.
    Charles Dickens (1812–1870)

    Cultivated labor drives out brute labor. An infinite number of shrewd men, in infinite years, have arrived at certain best and shortest ways of doing, and this accumulated skill in arts, cultures, harvestings, curings, manufactures, navigations, exchanges, constitutes the worth of our world to-day.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)