counting
Sign in to savealt=A set of number blocks. The blocks 1, 2, and 3 are in the foreground; six other blocks can be seen in the background|thumb|Number blocks, which can be used for counting Counting is the process of determining the number of elements of a finite set of objects; that is, determining the size of a set. The traditional way of counting consists of continually increasing a (mental or spoken) counter by a unit for every element of the set, in some order, while marking (or displacing) those elements to avoid visiting the same element more than once, until no unmarked elements are left; if the counte
Article
6 sectionsContents
- Forms of counting
- Inclusive counting
- Education and development
- Counting in mathematics
- See also
- References
alt=A set of number blocks. The blocks 1, 2, and 3 are in the foreground; six other blocks can be seen in the background|thumb|Number blocks, which can be used for counting Counting is the process of determining the number of elements of a finite set of objects; that is, determining the size of a set. The traditional way of counting consists of continually increasing a (mental or spoken) counter by a unit for every element of the set, in some order, while marking (or displacing) those elements to avoid visiting the same element more than once, until no unmarked elements are left; if the counter was set to one after the first object, the value after visiting the final object gives the desired number of elements. The related term enumeration refers to uniquely identifying the elements of a finite (combinatorial) set or infinite set by assigning a number to each element.
Counting sometimes involves numbers other than one; for example, when counting money, counting out change, "counting by twos" (2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, ...), or "counting by fives" (5, 10, 15, 20, 25, ...).