First normal form (1NF) is a property of a relation in a relational database. A relation is in first normal form if and only if the domain of each attribute contains only atomic (indivisible) values, and the value of each attribute contains only a single value from that domain. The first definition of the term, in a 1971 conference paper by Edgar Codd, defined a relation to be in first normal form when none of its domains have any sets as elements. These two definitions do not conflict each other.