You can't split anything into nothing

>>1431500
because if you could soooo many formulas by nerds would just fall apart

Because zero is nothing.

>>1431500

Because it leads to contradictions.

If a/0 = b, a = b * 0, then let a = 0 and b can be anything. Not meaningful.

Division by zero is undefined. What that means is, when mathematicians developed the concept of division, they did not include the case of dividing by zero. The obvious reason is because there is no number large enough.

Try to divide 1/1
then 1/0.5
then 1/0.25
then 1/0.1
then 1/0.01
then 1/0.001

You'll notice the result gets progressively bigger, Now imagine a number so close to zero it's practically zero. You would get infinity.
But if you just put zero in, you don't know if the answer should be positive infinity or negative infinity, so you can't do it, it's undefined.

ok, honest answer:

assume you could divide by zero, then you'd get:
0 = 0
2*0 = 5*0
Because everything times 0 is 0 (this follows directly from the distributive law and the fact the addition forms a group).
So if you could invert 0, you'd get 2 = 5.
(Or for arbitrary numbers x, y: x = y)

This doesn't only work in fields, but in arbitrary rings. The additive neutral element can NEVER be inverted, except in one pathological case: the trivial ring {0}, here the additive identity is also the multiplicative identity and you have 0/0 = 0 (in this example).
But EVERYWHERE ELSE, you can't do it.

Ze+ro= nothing
I LRN 2 MATH! ....eh not funny anywho thanks for the answers i wont bother u guys with stupid questions Anymore

>>1431500
Just try it and see.

>>1431541
notice that in the trivial ring the fact that x = y for all numbers x,y in the trivial ring isn't actually a contradiction, since x and y will always be 0.

>>1431540

Ridiculous. You shouldn't even get to "should be infinity or...", infinity isn't a fucking god damn number.

If you look at a graph for 1/x you'll notice that 1/0 would need to be simultaneously equal to infinity and negative infinity.

>>1431511
>>1431512
>>1431515
>>1431536
>>1431540
Highschool fucktards.

>>1431523
this and
>>1431541
this.

>>1431593
OP doesn't need a set-theoretic answer you dumb, there are more intuitive ways of showing someone why division by zero should = undefined.

<3 u uni

>>1431606
I didn't talk about set theory. You probably meant to say "OP doesn't need a rigorous answer". Which can be argued, but you're missing a very important point:
I started out by showing that division by zero would lead to all numbers being equal (it's called a contradiction you fucktarded piece of shit), so I'd suppose that's pretty damn intuitive now, is it not?

Just because I mentioned that I'm able to prove this rigorously for all non-trivial rings doesn't make it less intuitive, does it? It still fucking leads to contradictions, and any argument involving "nothingness" or "infinity" has nothing to do here.

Because 1 divided by 0 doesn't matter! N/A would be a better answer than infinity

Simply because

Say there are 7 twigs and 3 cavemen, each caveman receives a fair share of 7/3 twigs they snap them into the right ratios and they are all happy.

Say there are 7 twigs with no cavemen, how do they share? It is a fallous argument, there are no cavemen to share the twigs, division is not required and the question becomes meaningless.

In your calculator, divide 1 by small numbers close to zero, like 0.1 and -0.1.

Then take smaller numbers, like 0.01 and -0.01.

Go even smaller, 0.0000001, and -0.0000001.

You can agree those small numbers are getting close to zero, but the smaller you get, you get a HUGE number as a result.

Conceptually, the closer you get to zero, the bigger answer you get. You can say as you approach 0, your answer goes off to infinity. But you're approaching 0 from both a negative number and a positive number right? No you're either heading off to negative infinity and to positive infinity depending where you're approaching zero.

Therefore, division by zero is UNDEFINED.

Dividing by zero is NOT infinity, or negative infinity, it's UNDEFINED.

If you take 1/x, and as x approaches zero from both negative and positive values, the limit (or answer) DOES NOT EXIST.

>>1431671

>No you're either heading off to negative infinity and to positive infinity depending where you're approaching zero.

So****** not No

I do not see why we cannot do this.

If we are willing to use negatives in our mathematics it makes common sense to split nothing.

Example

Subtract -5 Apples

from 2 Apples

Gives us -3 Apples

WTF HOW can you have negative amount of apples? Stupid fucking math.

>>1431606
Just because you don't understand set theory doesn't mean that everything you don't understand is set theory.

Look, if S is set theory and U is the things you don't understand, you have the following:

SU

Is any of this getting through to you?

0/0 = 1

how many times does a nothing go into a nothing....once

>>1431716

0/10
See me after class!

Let us assume that there is a solution to the question '1/0=x' and try to solve for x. I'll put y instead of 0 because it hurts my eyes to divide by 0...

1/y=x => 1=y*x => 1/x=y
As you can see, the bigger the x, the closer to zero we get. In fact, as x approaches infinity, y approaches zero. The problem is that for y=0 to be true, you need to have x=infinity, which is a meaningless notation, since 'infinity' isn't a number (it's a limit, which means you can use it together with '<' and '>', but never with '=').

>>1431697
I laughed. BTW, how do you use mathematical notations on message boards?

>>1431775
[ math] your TeX-code [/ math]

without the spaces in the brackets.

xsinx

>>1431788
not knowing TeX sucks