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Question14
Snowy Owl
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24 Jan 2013, 10:39 am

Came across this when messing about with my calculator. 0+0 = 0 0*0 = 0 0-0= 0

0/0= ERROR

Asked about it and turns out there are some weird (from my point of view) things with this. Anyone care to explain?

From what i asked, he said 0/0 = 0 or 0/0 = 1 or 0/0 = infinity or 0/0 = anything


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TallyMan
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24 Jan 2013, 10:49 am

0 / 0 is usually referred to a being undefined. Just because a mathematical or arithmetical expression can be written or fed into a calculator or computer does not automatically imply it is valid. You get a similar thing with human language expressions. This sentence is legitimate English but is does not make any logical sense: "Why do blue bananas eat fish on Sundays?"


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Tahitiii
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24 Jan 2013, 10:56 am

Sounds like another mataphore for my life.
How do you respond to the ridiculous, self-contradictory demands of the blue bananas?
Garbage in / garbage out... This world does not compute.



Trencher93
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24 Jan 2013, 11:02 am

Division by zero is undefined because any possible definition does not work. See this brief essay:

Why can't we divide by zero?
http://www.math.utah.edu/~pa/math/0by0.html



Question14
Snowy Owl
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24 Jan 2013, 11:03 am

TallyMan wrote:
0 / 0 is usually referred to a being undefined. Just because a mathematical or arithmetical expression can be written or fed into a calculator or computer does not automatically imply it is valid. You get a similar thing with human language expressions. This sentence is legitimate English but is does not make any logical sense: "Why do blue bananas eat fish on Sundays?"


The guy who i asked, who was a mathamatician, gave those examples. They he too said undefined. Just interested in it. Like awkard things.

I dislike my spelling.


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drh1138
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24 Jan 2013, 11:39 am

Looking at it graphically makes it pretty clear-cut:
Image

For 1/x, you can set x to be arbitrarily close to 0 and get an output of unbounded magnitude (infinity for positive x, negative infinity for negative x), but you can never get a meaningful output at the asymptote.



redrobin62
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24 Jan 2013, 12:48 pm

Blue bananas eat fish on Sunday because any other day would be heresy. (I googled it).



Tollorin
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24 Jan 2013, 1:18 pm

Image


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Jono
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24 Jan 2013, 1:24 pm

Question14 wrote:
Came across this when messing about with my calculator. 0+0 = 0 0*0 = 0 0-0= 0

0/0= ERROR

Asked about it and turns out there are some weird (from my point of view) things with this. Anyone care to explain?

From what i asked, he said 0/0 = 0 or 0/0 = 1 or 0/0 = infinity or 0/0 = anything


You can talk about divisions by zero in the context of limits. When dividing any non-zero real number by zero, the limit approaches positive or negative infinity. However, a division of zero by itself could be made to approach any real number rather than a specific value depending on the specific function, in that case it is called indeterminate because there no specific value.



ruveyn
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24 Jan 2013, 1:53 pm

0/0 is undefined. Why?

Given a and b, to determine a unique c such that a = b*c we must insist that b != 0. That way we can define a/b = c.

Another way of putting it is this: In the multiplicative group of numbers 0 does not have an inverse. In fact 0 is not a member of the multiplicative group for this very reason. It is impossible to find a number such that 0 * a = 1, the identity element of the multiplicative group of numbers.

ruveyn



Last edited by ruveyn on 24 Jan 2013, 4:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Marybird
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24 Jan 2013, 2:35 pm

Tollorin wrote:
Image

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:



naturalplastic
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24 Jan 2013, 2:51 pm

ANY number divided by zero is undefined.

Zero itsself is no exception.

You can multiply three by zero, add zero to three, or subract zero from three.

But how many times zero "go into" three?

"infinity times" a grade school might say- which is as close an answer as you can get maybe.

But its undefined. It just doesnt compute.

One might make a case that zero 'goes into' zero "one time"- but in reality- even when divided into itsself zero as a divider is undefined.



Last edited by naturalplastic on 24 Jan 2013, 3:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

morslilleole
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24 Jan 2013, 3:03 pm

You could also say that as the divisor approaches 0, the quotient approaches infinity. But you can't split something over 0 things, so the answer can only be that it is undefined.



Fnord
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24 Jan 2013, 3:26 pm

ruveyn wrote:
0/0 is undefined. Why?

Given a and b, to determine a unique c such that a = b*c we must insist that b != 0. That way we can define q/b = c.

Another way of putting it is this: In the multiplicative group of numbers 0 does not have an inverse. In fact 0 is not a member of the multiplicative group for this very reason. It is impossible to find a number such that 0 * a = 1, the identity element of the multiplicative group of numbers.

ruveyn


Best explanation so far.


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MCalavera
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24 Jan 2013, 3:35 pm

Here's the way I see it:

0 * 0 = 0
1 * 0 = 0
2 * 0 = 0
3.14 * 0 = 0
10000 * 0 = 0
97983459634578632789 * 0 = 0
any number * 0 = 0

Division is the opposite of multiplication:

What's 0 / 0?

Any number.

Therefore, undefined.



Question14
Snowy Owl
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24 Jan 2013, 4:37 pm

MCalavera wrote:
Here's the way I see it:

0 * 0 = 0
1 * 0 = 0
2 * 0 = 0
3.14 * 0 = 0
10000 * 0 = 0
97983459634578632789 * 0 = 0
any number * 0 = 0

Division is the opposite of multiplication:

What's 0 / 0?

Any number.

Therefore, undefined.


And there is the 4th possibility.


So, it is undefined. So...


0/0 = undefined


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