Poll: Can YOU divide by zero?
- Thread starter Kasper Gundersen
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Umm...I failed Calculus so no way in hell. I saw one of my friends do it once though; there was a large explosion, I woke up three days later in the middle of a mile wide crater. Haven't seen my friend since then either.
I have had this arguement with so many people over the years. While I was sitting my leaving cert I came up with a way to divide by zero that none of my teachers or subsiquent lecturers through my degree or masters degree argue was wrong. One philosophy student managed a half arsed arguement against it, but hey he was a philosophy student dirp head.
Ok here goes, lets boil maths down to its simplist form...apples and oranges. It is how we all learned. 1 apple + 2 apples = 3 apples etc. So if there are 8 apples existing in the universe somewhere and they are divided between 0 people there are still 8 apples...not infinate apples...just 8.
EDIT: damn it, ninjad by cakes....
Ok here goes, lets boil maths down to its simplist form...apples and oranges. It is how we all learned. 1 apple + 2 apples = 3 apples etc. So if there are 8 apples existing in the universe somewhere and they are divided between 0 people there are still 8 apples...not infinate apples...just 8.
EDIT: damn it, ninjad by cakes....
Not quite. But an evaluation of limits allows for an approximation. In this case, evaluating the limit as x goes to zero of 1/x yields plus or minus infinity.
Yeah, plus or minus infinity as an approximation. The two farthest values both approximate infinity.
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So no, I can't divide by zero. But I understand just WHY it is so mind-melding.
EDIT:
You forget one thing: The limit of 1/X as X goes to zero is only infinity as X goes down to zero. Going up, it's negative infinity.
Yeah, plus or minus infinity as an approximation. The two farthest values both approximate infinity.
...
So no, I can't divide by zero. But I understand just WHY it is so mind-melding.
EDIT:
Naheal said:
You forget one thing: The limit of 1/X as X goes to zero is only infinity as X goes down to zero. Going up, it's negative infinity.
Of course. The Calculator just cant handle my awesomeness and gives me a constant error. I need to talk to Chuck Norris about getting a new Calculator.
I should start a thread, "the 50 post subjects that 99.5% of the threads around here are about." Division by zero would be one of them.
I divide by zero all the time when I'm programming. It's like:
if (variable == 0)
// Special case behavior
else
// Normal math involving division by the variable.
The thing is that, when you've got zero of a unit, it usually indicates you need to back out of the math and realize what that means in logical terms and then behave appropriately. If you find yourself dividing by zero, chances are you screwed up somewhere and forgot the reality behind the units being represented by the math.
I divide by zero all the time when I'm programming. It's like:
if (variable == 0)
// Special case behavior
else
// Normal math involving division by the variable.
The thing is that, when you've got zero of a unit, it usually indicates you need to back out of the math and realize what that means in logical terms and then behave appropriately. If you find yourself dividing by zero, chances are you screwed up somewhere and forgot the reality behind the units being represented by the math.
That is taken as a given, with the conclusion that nothing divided by everything equals something. It's not used in normal mathematics, and generally only used when dealing with complex numbers (i.e. j, the square root of -1)Darth Crater said:
Just to be clear here: x/0 is NOT equal to infinity.
It is useful sometimes to say that it is (calculus, economics), but what you are using is really a number that is very close to 0, say 0.000000000000001.
Dividing by zero is undefined, there is no answer to it.
It is useful sometimes to say that it is (calculus, economics), but what you are using is really a number that is very close to 0, say 0.000000000000001.
Dividing by zero is undefined, there is no answer to it.