inhale
 
 
NO

Neeeeeeerd :^)

Fun semi-related fact: the typical set notation leads to a lot of confusion for Polish students. Observe:
 
Z - liczby całkowite (whole numbers)  
C - liczby zespolone (complex numbers)
 
To make matters worse, many coursebook authors use these symbols in reverse to “make it more intuitive”, which of course leads to even more confusion and ambiguity. In particular, high school level examiners are required to recognize both variants as correct.

@Background Pony Number 17  
Not intentionally. Kronecker’s distaste for other things called numbers, such as the irrational or the transfinite, is well-attested. And mathematicians use a lot of jargon. In English, they use words like “rational”, “real”, and “complex” to describe numbers with no regard for the usual meanings of rationality, reality, or complexity, except when they’re making horrible puns. (STEM types love their horrible puns.) “Ganze Zahl” is the same thing in German, a specific term of art.

@Background Human  
My high school German’s a bit rusty, but can’t “die ganzen Zahlen” be translated as “all of the numbers” as well as “the whole numbers”? A little ambiguity here, perhaps?

@Background Human  
What a radical naturalist.  
I’m glad this meme is even closer to historical reality than I thought.

While I can’t find specific confirmation, the general consensus seems to be that Kronecker himself was as wary of negative numbers as he was of anything else. Indeed, his maxim is sometimes translated “God made the natural numbers…”, even though his original German, “die ganzen Zahlen” (literally “whole numbers”), now describes all integers.

I though the Z stands for Zigger

N for Nirik, which is the N-word for Kirins.