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sambarbarian
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In most cases division be zero ends up with not defined , but why do people sometimes call it infinity ?
sambarbarian said:In most cases division be zero ends up with not defined , but why do people sometimes call it infinity ?
Diffy said:You should probably read the FAQs.
Your question is bad. In most cases? What does that mean.
Look. Dividing by 0 is not defined in the Real numbers. PERIOD.
People who call it infinity are either,
1) Don't know what they are talking about and are wrong.
-or-
2) Doing very high level math, using a different number system.
sambarbarian said:In most cases division be zero ends up with not defined , but why do people sometimes call it infinity ?
Mute said:Or 3), they are being loose with terminology and mean it in a limit sense, e.g., ##\lim_{x \rightarrow 0^+} 1/x = \infty##
sambarbarian said:In most cases division be zero ends up with not defined , but why do people sometimes call it infinity ?
jtart2 said:Why doesn't someone just define it! ;)
Why doesn't someone just define it! ;)
dipole said:In math it's not defined, but in physics division by zero is infinity. And it's not that physicists don't know what they're talking about, it's just that limits make for incredibly useful approximations, which you need to apply in order to get things done within the human lifespan.
Number Nine said:This isn't really an issue of limits.The limit of 1/x as x tends towards zero is not the same thing as 1/0. It is a fundamental property of the reals that zero does not have a multiplicative inverse; you can't add one without altering the behaviour of the entire system.
dipole said:In math it's not defined, but in physics division by zero is infinity. And it's not that physicists don't know what they're talking about, it's just that limits make for incredibly useful approximations, which you need to apply in order to get things done within the human lifespan.
No: what is enormously useful is to understand the concept that "medium / tiny = huge".dipole said:so even if mathematically it is incorrect, in physics and other sciences it's enormously useful to define 1/0 to be infinity.
Division by zero is an arithmetic operation that is undefined and mathematically impossible to calculate. It occurs when a number is divided by zero, or when the divisor (the number you are dividing by) is equal to zero.
When a number is divided by a very small number close to zero, the result becomes very large and approaches infinity. This is because the smaller the divisor gets, the larger the resulting quotient becomes. In mathematical terms, we say that the limit of the quotient approaches infinity.
Infinity is not a number, but rather a concept that represents something that is boundless or endless. In the case of division by zero, the resulting quotient becomes infinitely large, as the divisor gets closer to zero. This is why people often refer to division by zero as "infinity."
Division by zero is undefined because it violates the fundamental principles of arithmetic. When dividing, we are essentially asking the question "how many times does the divisor fit into the dividend?" With a divisor of zero, we are essentially asking "how many times does nothing fit into something?" which is not a meaningful question.
No, division by zero is always undefined and cannot be solved. Some may argue that in calculus, there are certain cases where division by zero can be evaluated, but this is due to the use of limits and not actual division. In the realm of arithmetic, division by zero is always considered undefined.