What is the uses of numbers other than counting things?

Question

When I think for example of the numbers 1 or 2 or 3, I would immediately visualize in my head that I have 1 item or 2 items or 3 items (so I immediately associate numbers with counting things).

But are numbers only used for counting things, or does numbers have other uses too?

Answer 1

I'm going to expand off of achille hui's comment, as I think it is highly agreeable among mathematics; it sums up nicely into three groups.

Cardinals

Probably the first type of quantity we think of when referring to numbers are cardinals. When a number is a cardinal, it generally means it's denoting an amount. I.e; in the sentence:

I have 5 apples

5 is a cardinal. Cardinals are usually the type of numbers in counting, but "counting" can also be applied to the next type of numbers.

Ordinals

Just as common as cardinals, are the ordinals. Name implied, they're used for denoting order / placement. In the sentence:

I finished in 5'th place

5 is an ordinal. Notice how a 'place' doesn't have an 'amount', but it does have an order. Counting can come up here too. E.g;

I know I finished in 5'th place because I counted 4 people that finished before me.

Here, 5 is still an ordinal but 4 is a cardinal - so cardinals and ordinals can be very much intertwined.

Nominals

Last but not least, we use nominals when we don't care about quantity or order. They're used as labels to distinguish separate things. In the sentence:

The first digit in my phone number is 5

5 is a nominal. This is because phone numbers don't necessarily have a quantity nor an order, but they are unique - so we use a unique series of numbers as a label to distinguish between phones.