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Rainbow Dash
Joined: Wed Apr 04, 2012 5:41 pm Location: Cloudsdale
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Why Exactly Can't You Divide By Zero?
I need some mathematicians or some knowledgeable people here or something. Preferably anilv, DarthFireBert or summat.
I was just wondering.
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Wed Apr 04, 2012 10:28 pm |
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trevor54
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Re: Why Exactly Can't You Divide By Zero?
Because the professor said so, plus the calculator says error so it must be true.
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Wed Apr 04, 2012 10:30 pm |
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ELITE
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Re: Why Exactly Can't You Divide By Zero?
Really? Just think about it.
How many nothings do you have to put together to get a something?
The answer is greater than infinity. But it's not, because you will never get there.
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Wed Apr 04, 2012 10:30 pm |
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Imra15
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Re: Why Exactly Can't You Divide By Zero?
its cause there is no logical way of dividing something by nothing
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Last edited by Imra15 on Wed Apr 04, 2012 10:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Wed Apr 04, 2012 10:32 pm |
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paxiprime
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Re: Why Exactly Can't You Divide By Zero?
0/1 = 0
1/0 = infinity
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Wed Apr 04, 2012 10:33 pm |
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anilv
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Re: Why Exactly Can't You Divide By Zero?
Hmm you called? Suppose 1 / 0 is defined. Then there's a number b such that 1 / 0 = b. Multiply both sides by zero. Therefore 1 = 0 x b. But 0 x b = 0 so we deduce 1 = 0. Contradiction.
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Wed Apr 04, 2012 10:37 pm |
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Rainbow Dash
Joined: Wed Apr 04, 2012 5:41 pm Location: Cloudsdale
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Re: Why Exactly Can't You Divide By Zero?
anilv wrote: Hmm you called? Suppose 1 / 0 is defined. Then there's a number b such that 1 / 0 = b. Multiply both sides by zero. Therefore 1 = 0 x b. But 0 x b = 0 so we deduce 1 = 0. Contradiction. Hmm. Sounds reasonable. And logically sound. You know I always hated indirect proofs. Until now that I notice how invaluable they are sometimes!
And it's nice to see your pretty face here Josh. :P
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Wed Apr 04, 2012 10:43 pm |
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ELITE
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Re: Why Exactly Can't You Divide By Zero?
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Wed Apr 04, 2012 10:47 pm |
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Cygnus
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Re: Why Exactly Can't You Divide By Zero?
Dividing by zero=infinity, so you can, it just always gives you the same answer.
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Thu Apr 05, 2012 12:54 am |
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anilv
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Re: Why Exactly Can't You Divide By Zero?
Cygnus wrote: Dividing by zero=infinity, so you can, it just always gives you the same answer. In a certain sense, this is correct. However, it is not a trivial matter to introduce "infinity" into the number system. How does it interact with other numbers? What's infinity + 1? What's infinity / infinity? Ultimately, the proof I gave above holds in the sense that there is no real number b such that 1/0 = b can be defined consistently. If you extend the real number line to include a point at infinity, certain other things can be said. Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_projective_line for details.
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Thu Apr 05, 2012 2:01 am |
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landswimmer
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Re: Why Exactly Can't You Divide By Zero?
Rainbow Dash wrote: I need some mathematicians or some knowledgeable people here or something. Preferably anilv, DarthFireBert or summat.
I was just wondering. because zero is non dimensional, it is the "recognition" of an absence, the lack of something how many slices can you divide a pizza into if the slices are 0 inches long, 0 inches wide and the pizza is 0 inches in height?
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Thu Apr 05, 2012 2:53 am |
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cej1120con
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Re: Why Exactly Can't You Divide By Zero?
anilv wrote: Cygnus wrote: Dividing by zero=infinity, so you can, it just always gives you the same answer. In a certain sense, this is correct. However, it is not a trivial matter to introduce "infinity" into the number system. How does it interact with other numbers? What's infinity + 1? What's infinity / infinity? Ultimately, the proof I gave above holds in the sense that there is no real number b such that 1/0 = b can be defined consistently. If you extend the real number line to include a point at infinity, certain other things can be said. Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_projective_line for details. I like this guy.
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Last edited by cej1120con on January 1st, 1337, 6:66 am, edited over 9000 times in total.
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Thu Apr 05, 2012 8:45 am |
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kilua
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Re: Why Exactly Can't You Divide By Zero?
thank you for making this post, and thank you enkelin and demonblood for explaining some of it.. i always wondered how it works. About Infinity, see this video, and check out the other videos in this channel, pretty sweet Nerdy stuff http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTeJ64KD5cg
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Thu Apr 05, 2012 3:16 pm |
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The Salty One
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Re: Why Exactly Can't You Divide By Zero?
As Demoonblood mentioned, a nice way of thinking about it would be diving something by 0.1
What you're effectively saying is that you can fit 100 tenths of apples into the same space as 10 apples.
But if these pieces of apple are so small as to not exist how do you determine how many pieces of 'nothing' are equal to 10 apples?
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Thu Apr 05, 2012 3:34 pm |
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Visorak
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Re: Why Exactly Can't You Divide By Zero?
You could try to visualize division by zero like this: 1/.1 = 10 1/.01 = 100 1/.001 = 1,000 1/.0001 = 10,000 and so on. As you get closer to 0, your answer gets larger and larger. And because there is no limit to the number of digits you can have, you will just keep going higher.
1/.0000000000000000000001 = 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 and it keeps going on forever, to infinity.
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Thu Apr 05, 2012 3:44 pm |
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