Zero

Zero is a very special number. It stands for nothing at all. If you have zero apples, it means you have no apples. Zero looks like a round circle and is written as 0. It helps us count, add, and subtract. Zero is also used to make bigger numbers like 10, 100, and 1,000.

What Is Zero?

Zero means there is none of something. If a plate has zero cookies, the plate is empty. Zero is smaller than one. It sits right before one on the number line. Zero is also in the middle between positive and negative numbers. When you add zero to a number, the number stays the same. When you take zero away, nothing changes. But if you multiply a number by zero, the answer is always zero.

An old paper shows one of the first ways people wrote zero.
An old paper shows one of the first ways people wrote zero. (Original author unknown / Wikimedia Commons)

The Story of Zero

People did not always use zero. Long ago, many people counted without it. Math teachers in India were some of the first to use zero as a real number. That was more than 1,500 years ago. Later, the idea of zero spread to other parts of the world. Today, zero is used all over the globe. We could not do modern math or use computers without it.

Fun Facts

  • Zero is the only number that is not positive or negative.
  • Any number times zero equals zero.
  • You cannot divide a number by zero in math.

Did You Know?

Computers use only two numbers to work: zero and one. These are called binary.