I have thought about this for a long time, since I have done some Grade 8 American Math League (A Competition) Past Papers, but when it asked some question like: How many whole numbers have their square less than or equal to $200$, I thought any integer from $-14$ to $14$ works, which is $29$ whole numbers, but the answer says there are only $15$. I then searched up the definition of whole numbers, and most of the sites said they were nonnegative integers, while others just say a whole number is any integer.
But if a whole number is a nonnegative integer, then why do questions like "Round $-3.6$ to the nearest whole number" exist?
I've discussed this question with my teacher and even the Head of Mathematics of my school, but they both said that a whole number is any integer. My maths teacher also said that we only would talk about integers and not whole numbers in High School, but I am still curious about what a whole number actually is.
Thank you very much!
Best Answer
After several days, I saw that in the Australian Textbook Year 11 Extension 1 Chapter 2A that whole numbers are nonnegative integers.
Thank you for your help!