1 (number) Chinese hand sign Pronunciation of the number 1. One (1) is the first natural number, followed by two. The Roman numeral for one is I., The glyph used today in the Western world to represent the number 1, a vertical line, often with a serif at the top and sometimes a short horizontal line at the bottom, traces its roots back to the Indians, who wrote 1 as a horizontal line, as is still the case in Chinese script., Tenth century “West Arabic” variation of the Nepali form of Hindu-Arabic numerals (compare Devanagari script १ (1, “éka”)), possibly influenced by Roman numeral Ⅰ, both ultimately from using a single stroke to represent the number one., Although the number 1 used to be considered a prime number, it requires special treatment in so many definitions and applications involving primes greater than or equal to 2 that it is usually placed into a class of its own (Wells 1986, p. 31)., The number 1 is the smallest positive integer representing unity and singularity in mathematics. It symbolizes independence, creativity, and leadership in many cultures and is often associated with new beginnings., Your guide to the number 1, an odd number which is uniquely neither prime nor composite. Mathematical info, prime factorization, fun facts and numerical data for STEM, education and fun..