Timeline for Dividing by zero
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
7 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dec 10, 2014 at 0:19 | comment | added | Sam Watkins | How many zeros are there in 10? We can't make 10 from zeros. How many zeros are there in zero? As many as you like. If we can divide something by zero, it must be zero also. That "translation" in simple words is suitable for anyone who can understand division at all, I guess. | |
| Dec 8, 2014 at 15:52 | comment | added | Andrew Sanfratello | @SamWatkins, I'm not sure I agree with your statement that this "can be understood by any student of arithmetic." You do not state, as I asked originally and then bolded upon editing, for what level of student this is appropriate. Could you perhaps clarify your answer to incorporate this? To suggest that "$a=0$ implies $a/0=b$ is unconstrained" hints at the idea of a non-unique answer, but I don't think that means that it is totally unconstrained. | |
| Dec 5, 2014 at 1:11 | comment | added | Sam Watkins | @Benjamin, my answer is a complete and correct explanation of division by zero, which can be understood by any student of arithmetic. The conventional approach, to "give up" on seeing a division by zero, is conceptually weak and less useful in practice. The department head might learn something from this answer. If she is any good at mathematics, I doubt she would down-vote it. | |
| Dec 5, 2014 at 0:53 | history | edited | Sam Watkins | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 52 characters in body
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| Dec 3, 2014 at 15:56 | comment | added | Benjamin Dickman | The suggestion that $a/0 = b$ implies $a = 0$ is highly irregular (as is your closing sentence: $a/0 = b$ can be "simplified" to $a = 0$). No, in school mathematics, $a/0$ is undefined (including the case in which $a = 0$). | |
| Oct 27, 2014 at 0:16 | review | First posts | |||
| Oct 27, 2014 at 9:59 | |||||
| Oct 27, 2014 at 0:12 | history | answered | Sam Watkins | CC BY-SA 3.0 |