Question

Fill in the blank in the following.
1 is neither _____ nor _____.

Answer 1

Hint: In this question we have to determine that the number 1 does not belong to which category of the numbers. For example, the categories for a number are - Natural Numbers, Whole Numbers, Prime Numbers, Composite Numbers etc.

Complete step-by-step answer:
According to the definition of the Natural Number the given number 1 is a natural number because it is a positive countable number.
Also, according to the definition of the Whole Number the given number 1 is also a whole number because it does not have any decimal or fractional part.
But the given number 1 is not a “Prime Number” because according to the definition of a prime number “any number can be written in terms of the product of the prime numbers” but in case of 1 we cannot use it in the form of a product of the prime numbers. That is the reason 1 is excluded from the prime numbers. So, 1 is not a Prime Number.
Also, the number 1 is not a “Composite Number” because from the earlier statement we have concluded that we can not write 1 in terms of the product of two numbers, and according to the definition of the composite number “a number that can be written in terms of product of two numbers is a composite number”. So, we can say that 1 is also not a Composite Number.

Therefore, 1 is neither “prime” nor “composite number”.

Note: It should be noted that 1 is not a prime number nor composite number because we can not write 1 as the product of two numbers. For example, 3 is a prime number as well as a composite number because we can write 3 as the product of 3 and 1.