twesterm said:
Rath said:
Gnizmo said:
Lem_Nx said:
| Rath said:
Wait, how do you divide by zero?
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Limits, baby :D
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Pretty much this. You look at the numbers as they get closer and closer to 0 and see where it converges and assume that must be what the number actually is at that point. This is one of the basic ideas behind derivatives.
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Its not division by zero, its division close to zero. There is a fundamental difference between dividing between an infinitely small number and division by zero. Thats the reason why you always have to express it with limit notation (lim x-> 0 of 1/x is infinity) rather than 1/x is infinity.
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There's always L^Hospital's rule (I don't care that I spelled it wrong). It kind of lets you divide by 0 in very specific circumstances (lets you calculate certain limts that would equal 0/0 and some other ones).
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But once again only limits, L'Hopitals only lets you find the limit of a function when the limit of the denominator and numerator are both zero (or both infinity) - it doesn't actually let you divide by zero.
I think there are special and obscure cases where you can divide by zero - just not standard mathematics (I think it can be done in abstract algebra?).
