Timeline for Dividing by zero
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
13 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 28, 2014 at 9:08 | comment | added | Incnis Mrsi | A very bad vicious-circle-style argument. Impossibility of resolving 1/0 in numbers must be understood before passing to limits, not explained with them, because it is an important piece of motivation for a (new) concept of limit. | |
| Oct 27, 2014 at 23:12 | comment | added | geometrian | @JosephO'Rourke Infinity is an actual number in the relevant number systems. In this case, $\mathbb{R}^*$. Incidentally, in real analysis, "diverges-to-$\infty$" is shorthand for something like "for-any-$\epsilon$-there-exists-no-$n_0$-such-that-for-any-$n>n_0$-the-function-is-$\epsilon$-bounded-to-some-constant-$L$", but it's perfectly possible to be a first-class-number as well. | |
| Oct 27, 2014 at 16:23 | comment | added | Joseph O'Rourke | @JPBurke: At whatever age/level a student could understand that dividing a unit into thirds results in three pieces. So they must have familiarity with fractions. | |
| Oct 27, 2014 at 11:35 | comment | added | Joseph O'Rourke | @TimS.: And $\infty$ is not a number, not an element of $\mathbb{N}$ or $\mathbb{R}$. | |
| Oct 27, 2014 at 7:52 | comment | added | Jared | @Nit Well I disagree with the premise that you "cannot" divide by zero and this explanation perfectly explains why simply saying "you can't" is incomplete (if not wrong) at best. | |
| Oct 27, 2014 at 1:27 | comment | added | Tim S. | To me, this suggests that $1/0 = \infty$. | |
| Oct 26, 2014 at 23:17 | comment | added | JPBurke | The question also specified: "Please indicate for which level you think your explanation would be appropriate." | |
| Oct 26, 2014 at 14:24 | comment | added | Joseph O'Rourke | @Nit: I was responding to the question, "How do/would you explain why division by zero does not produce a result." | |
| Oct 26, 2014 at 14:13 | comment | added | Etheryte | I don't think this really explains why you can't divide by zero, though. | |
| Oct 26, 2014 at 6:32 | comment | added | Jared | This is a good, graphical, explanation of a divide by zero (in terms of division)...I have no qualms with this answer...although it would be nice to see why sometimes dividing zero by zero results in a finite amount. | |
| Oct 26, 2014 at 0:57 | comment | added | Joseph O'Rourke |
@RoryDaulton: PieChart[] in Mathematica.
|
|
| Oct 26, 2014 at 0:56 | comment | added | Rory Daulton | Nice graphics! How did you get them? | |
| Oct 26, 2014 at 0:17 | history | answered | Joseph O'Rourke | CC BY-SA 3.0 |