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What Does N Mean in Math?

Answer – The capital letter N represents the set of natural numbers in math. The small letter n, on the other hand, may often be encountered in various math topics as “n!”. This indicates the factorial of any integer n.

Explanation:

What N means in math varies depending on the way it is written. 

The uppercase N is used as a way of denoting the set of natural numbers in math. The set is also known as the set of counting numbers and includes all positive integers from 1 to ∞. It is usually written as N = {1, 2, 3, 4, …}. The most accurate way to represent this set is by using the double-struck capital N (ℕ).

However, the lowercase n accompanied by an exclamation mark, or n!, may often be encountered in topics like number theory in math. This is read as n factorial, where n is any positive integer.

A factorial is the product of all integers starting from 1 till n and is given by the formula n! = n × (n – 1) × (n – 2) × … × 1.

For example: 5! = 5 × 4 × 3 × 2 × 1


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