Is zero really a number and did the Mayans really discover it?

Thanks for A2A. Yes. Zero is an integer existing between +1 and -1. I have no idea where you got the idea that the Mayans discovered it. read more

However, they never developed the idea of zero as a number. Zero in the Americas Six hundred years later and 12,000 miles from Babylon, the Mayans developed zero as a placeholder around A.D. 350 and used it to denote a placeholder in their elaborate calendar systems. read more

TIMELINE shows the development of zero throughout the world. The first recorded zero appeared in Mesopotamia around 3 B.C. The Mayans invented it independently circa 4 A.D. It was later devised in India in the mid-fifth century, spread to Cambodia near the end of the seventh century, and into China and the Islamic countries at the end of the eighth. read more