Showing posts with label mathematics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mathematics. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Division by zero

Division by zero is when zero is the divisor of a numeric value. In such a case, result would usually be referred to infinity. However, if you work it out with a calculator, you would most likely get a "math error". Even if the equation seems perfectly logical. Here are a few examples.

x/0*0 should result with zero as the answer. And so should (x/0)-(x/0).

However, the most outrageously incorrect answer I feel would be towards the equation 0/0.

Here is my proof that 0/0 should result in a 1.

Proof

x/1=x

switch the divisor and the answer to get

x/x=1

Every number can satisfy these equations. If you replace x with 0, you can will be able to see that 0/1=0 is obviously correct and so should be 0/0=1.