It's also a complex number, a Unicode character, an ASCII character, an Extended ASCII character, a glyph, the multiplicative identity element, a raster image, ...
The GP point is correct; we implicitly convert between all these representations naturally and quickly, but there are interesting branches of mathematics that consider those conversions explicitly and find nuances (eg, category theory).
The GP point is correct; we implicitly convert between all these representations naturally and quickly, but there are interesting branches of mathematics that consider those conversions explicitly and find nuances (eg, category theory).