this post was submitted on 16 Sep 2024
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It's true. (lemmy.world)
submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[โ€“] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Calculators also say that dividing by 0 is an error, but logic says that the answer is infinite. (If i recall, it's more correctly 'undefined', but I'm years out of math classes now.)

That is, as you divide a number by a smaller and smaller number, the product increases. 1/.1=10, 1/.01=100, 1/.001=1000, etc. As the denominator approaches 0, the product approaches infinity. But you can't quantify infinity per se, which results in an undefined error.

If someone that's a mathematician wants to explain this correctly, I'm all ears.

[โ€“] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

It approaches positive and negative infinity, depending on the sign of the denominator. The result must not be two different numbers at once, so dividing by zero cannot be defined.

There are other reasons, too, but I forgot about them.