Is zero a number or the absence of a number?

Question

I have looked at several different articles/explanations but they either have contradictory statements or they use esoteric language that I cant wrap my head around. pls help

In: Mathematics

Answer 1

0 is as much of a number as any other number. Whether numbers exist or not is a philosophical question. Depending on how you view numbers, one might say that some numbers exist but that 0 doesn’t. But it doesn’t really matter if it exists or not, it’s still a number, and a very useful one at that.