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1÷0=?

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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 18,299 ✭✭✭✭The Backwards Man


    Peatys wrote: »
    0c? Is -34f, so double is -68f, or -17c

    Your science teacher should feel bad.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 9,586 ✭✭✭4068ac1elhodqr


    If it's not 1.61803399, I don't care.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,881 ✭✭✭Peatys


    Your science teacher should feel bad.

    You're right, it's actually 32f. But still -17c


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,815 ✭✭✭SimonTemplar


    System.DivideByZeroException


  • Registered Users Posts: 7,086 ✭✭✭the whole year inn


    That's numberwang!


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  • Registered Users Posts: 8,615 ✭✭✭grogi


    404


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,815 ✭✭✭SimonTemplar


    1 divided by 0.
    It is 1 divided by nothing.
    So you're not dividing 1 by anything.
    Therefore, answer is 1

    No, that is wrong. Division means how many times one number is contained within another number.

    Five is contained within 35 seven times, therefore 35/5 = 7.
    You can't answer how many times zero is contained within 35, therefore the answer to division by zero is undefined.


  • Administrators, Social & Fun Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 75,837 Admin ✭✭✭✭✭Beasty


    A brick weighs 1kg plus half the brick's weight. How much does the brick weigh?
    (3+(i*i))kg


  • Registered Users Posts: 21,107 ✭✭✭✭PARlance


    Grayson wrote: »
    Technically it'll be 0.0000000000000000000000001

    Ya, but imagine what it'll be in 12 months time!


  • Registered Users Posts: 21,107 ✭✭✭✭PARlance


    Cordell wrote: »
    There are 0 degrees today. Tomorrow it will be twice as cold.
    What's the tomorrow's temperature?

    Freezin


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  • Registered Users Posts: 16,161 ✭✭✭✭Grayson


    A brick weighs 1kg plus half the brick's weight. How much does the brick weigh?

    Let x be the weight.....

    x = 1 + x/2
    => 2x = 2 +x
    => 2x - x = 2
    => x = 2 = (3+(i*i))kg


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,667 ✭✭✭Hector Bellend


    shove it up your hole


  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 90,966 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    sullivlo wrote: »
    Infinity
    Yes , but which one ?


    I'll tell you about a very weird night I had one time while I was in college, working at the Hotel Ad Infinitum ...

    I arrived at work that night, ready to relieve the desk clerk who worked before me on Friday nights. He told me the most unbelievable thing: the hotel was full! Perhaps I should describe the place to you. It was just one great big long hallway; there was a door at the entrance, and when you walked in, the desk was at the left. Then the hall opened before you, endlessly. Along the left hand side of the hall were all the odd numbered rooms {1, 3, 5, 7, 9, ...} and at the right side were the even numbered rooms {2, 4, 6, 8, ...}. The hallway went on and on, on and on forever! It was hard to imagine that the place was full, but he assured me that it was. I should have known right then and there that something strange was going on, but I had an exam coming up, so I sat down, pulled out my calculus book, and started studying.

    A little after one o'clock, a huge stretch limo pulled into the parking lot. A chauffeur got out, and walked in.

    "Howdy, I need a room for the night; my boss is sleepy; he had a hard game tonight."

    "Baseball player?" That figured; even in those days salaries were out-of-sight! But I told him that the place was full: "That's what the sign says, right?"

    "Wrong; back in a minute." He went out to the limo, popped open the trunk, and pulled out a little package about the size of a loaf of banana nut bread; it turned out it was a different kind of bread all together! He brought it in, set it on the desk and slid off its velvet cover and--lo and behold--it was a gold brick!

    We'd been studying compound interest in one of my classes, and I knew that the student loans I was taking out were going to cost me a LOT more than I was getting from them. My eyes widened with amazement. I looked up at the driver, who was smiling as he said, "So, you think there's something we can work out?"

    You bet there was! I immediately grabbed the intercom, and announced to all the guests: "Please excuse the interruption, but if you're in Room N , would you kindly move to Room N+1 ?"

    So, the guy in Room1 went to Room 2, the couple in Room 2 went to Room 3, et cetera. It was a mad flurry of rushing folks, dashing across the infinitely long hallway at the Hotel Ad Infinitum ... amazing! Please note that no one lost out, because there was no end to the hallway, and when everyone was settled, there was no one in Room1, right? So the baseball guy took Room 1, I took the gold brick, and proceeded to write my letter of resignation. Incidentally, this must mean that infinity plus one equals infinity, because I took an infinite number of quests, added the baseball player, and put them all up in the Hotel Ad Infinitum. Amazing, isn't it? I was blown away, but the real weirdness had not yet begun.

    While I was trying to figure out how to turn my gold brick into normal money, I heard a tremendous rattling sound, looked out into the parking lot, and suddenly there appeared a beat up old VW van, smoke pouring out of its engine, a little trail of oil following it. The driver turned it off (though it kept running for a bit, sputtering and clicking and gasping) and ran into the hotel. Looking a little wild-eyed, he exclaimed that they needed rooms for the night. They? Rooms?

    "Sir, did you notice the NO VACANCYsign outside, all lit up, bright, flashing neon?"

    He talked on for quite a bit, got confused a few times, but I managed to sort out the story. Seems Dylan was playing nearby, and the van outside was carrying an infinite number of Dylan freaks, all ready to catch their man in action. Actually, he was my man too, so I was very interested. We talked awhile and it turned out that he had an extra ticket. I was wondering where he had gotten an infinite number plus one Dylan tickets, but I figured what-the-hey? Anyway, he offered to lay the ticket on me if only I could put 'em up for the night. I was ready to quit anyway, so I figured why not, and jumped back on the intercom and announced, "Ah, sorry to interrupt again, folks, but we have an emergency here, and if you're in Room N would you please move to Room 2N."

    So the baseball player went to Room 2, the guy in Room 2 went to Room 4, the couple in Room 3 went to Room 6, and so on. Again, no one was put out on the street, since--as you may have guessed--the Hotel Ad Infinitum had no back door! When that was over, all of the original guests, along with the baseball guy, were all on the right-hand side of the hotel, in the even-numbered rooms (of which there are an infinite number) and that left all the odd-numbered rooms vacant. So, I put the Dylan freaks into the odd-numbered rooms, which was sort of appropriate, I suspect! I guess this means that infinity plus infinity equals infinity, since I added an infinite number of Dylan freaks and put them in an infinite hotel which was already full!?!? Wait a minute ...

    So there I was, my gold brick, resignation letter, and Dylan ticket in hand, staring at the clock, counting down to my new-found freedom, when all of a sudden--oh no, how could this be--a caravan of buses pulled in, an infinite number of buses, and on each bus, an infinite number of people! An infinite number of infinities! What was happening, as I was soon to find out, was that there was to be an ecumenical council of all the galaxy's religions, and every single religion had sent its own busload, loaded with an infinite number of its faithful! Yes, I was seriously in trouble on this one! Naturally, the driver of the first bus jumped out, came bounding in, and requested "a few" rooms for the night ... uh huh! Sure, an infinite number of infinities, it was clear to me, clear as mud! Of course, I reminded him about the sign and how we were full and all, and he smiled and began asking about the Dylan freaks, about the baseball player (how he knew I had no idea) and then started to remind me of the story of Mary and Joseph trying to get a room at the inn, and suddenly it occurred to me that with an infinite number of religions being represented here (all the religions of the galaxy) that one of them, no doubt, was the "right" one, and that it would not be wise to go down as the guy who wouldn't give them a room for the night and sent them to the manger. I mean, did you ever wonder about that guy that sent Mary and Joseph to the manger? I wonder how he's doing?

    Well, in one of my courses, we'd been studying prime numbers {2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, ...} and how Euclid, nearly two-thousand years ago, proved that the list of prime numbers is infinitely long. So I got the following idea: I got back on the intercom (last time, I promise) and asked the current guests, "If you're in room N, please move to room 2N."

    Thus, the people in the hotel at that time went to rooms 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, .... Then I went outside and explained my plan to the first few bus drivers, and asked them to pass it on. Here's the plan: each bus received its own prime number, starting at three. So the first bus was 3's, the second 5's, the third 7's, the fourth 11';s and so on, one prime for each bus. Then, as for the people on the bus, they all received powers of those primes. For example, the first bus was assigned rooms 3, 9, 27, 81, 243, and so on, powers of 3 (the N-th person on the bus was assigned room 3N). The next bus was assigned powers of five, so they had rooms 5, 25, 125, 625, et cetera, the N-th person being assigned room 5N. There were infinitely many primes, one for each bus, and an infinity of powers of each prime, so everyone had his own room! It took me a while to explain the scheme to everyone--there were a few of them that were math atheists, and it was rough going once or twice, but they all finally settled in.

    Then, as I was going over the register, I noticed that no one was in room 6 (= 2x3), nor in room 10 (= 2x5), nor in any room whose number was a product of two or more different primes, since these rooms were not powers of a single prime, and hence had no bus assigned to them. A quick calculation showed that there were, in fact, an infinite number of vacancies! Incredible! I had taken an infinite hotel that was full, added an infinite number of infinities, and when all was done, I still had an infinite number of vacancies!

    The point of all this is that infinity is NOT a number, and--though there is a subject called "transfinite arithmetic"--you can't think in terms of doing ordinary arithmetic with infinity. The best way to think about it, is that infinity is a property that some sets possess. Richard Dedekind defined an infinite set to be one which could be put in one-to-one correspondence with a proper subset of itself. It is this strange property that I have played with in the telling of my weird tale.

    Incidentally, you might like to know that the hotel closed shortly after that night. Seems there were a lot of lawsuits and stuff, and the last I heard, lawyers -- the number of which is growing without bound -- were convening there. Maybe they'll all be trapped forever, and they won't be bothering common folks any more.


    - B. David Stacy


  • Registered Users Posts: 8,104 ✭✭✭Oldtree


    The answer is clearly room 101
    Or
    42.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,142 ✭✭✭Middle Man


    Answer: Error...

    You cannot divide anything by zero...

    In linguistic terms, if I had ten apples and divided them to no one, then I'm not dividing them at all, so there's no mathematical operation in the first place. If I decide to divide them to half a person, well in realistic terms I must compensate for the other half of the same person by getting another ten apples - that's why 10 divided by a half equals 20 - hence, the denominator is inverted to become the numerator for a substitute multiplicative operation.


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,115 ✭✭✭misstearheus


    0.


    What do I win?


  • Administrators, Social & Fun Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 75,837 Admin ✭✭✭✭✭Beasty


    Yes , but which one ?

    Buzz told me it's beyond all that infinity stuff


  • Registered Users Posts: 655 ✭✭✭Bellerstring


    Middle Man wrote: »
    Answer: Error...

    You cannot divide anything by zero...

    In linguistic terms, if I had ten apples and divided them to no one, then I'm not dividing them at all, so there's no mathematical operation in the first place. If I decide to divide them to half a person, well in realistic terms I must compensate for the other half of the same person by getting another ten apples - that's why 10 divided by a half equals 20 - hence, the denominator is inverted to become the numerator for a substitute multiplicative operation.

    Or...if you had 10 apples and divided them by nothing, means you're not dividing them, and the answer is 10 apples..?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 59 ✭✭flc37ie6ojwkh8


    Theoretically 1/0 = infinite


  • Moderators, Music Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 25,730 Mod ✭✭✭✭Boom_Bap


    Theoretically 1/0 = infinite

    Did you 'carry the 1'?


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  • Registered Users Posts: 8,810 ✭✭✭Hector Savage


    What's the sum of 1+2+3+4+5+6+.... to infinity ...

    -1/12 according to this crock of ****e



  • Moderators, Music Moderators Posts: 2,155 Mod ✭✭✭✭Oink


    53 replies and yet there isn’t a single actual word in the OP.

    I salute you Sir.


  • Registered Users Posts: 106 ✭✭maurv2


    >>> print (1/0)
    Traceback (most recent call last):
    File "<pyshell#3>", line 1, in <module>
    print (1/0)
    ZeroDivisionError: division by zero


  • Registered Users Posts: 12,968 ✭✭✭✭bnt


    Peregrine wrote: »
    Undefined. Next.

    If it was divided by a very small number approaching zero then its limit would be infinity. But not zero.
    But the limit of a very small number approaching zero is zero. This kind-of question is one reason why limits are a thing at all.

    The fundamental theorem of calculus includes a limit that approaches zero, but uses the limit instead because the formula blows up if you just put a zero in. It's like a placemarker that says "it is zero, really, but look the other way while I do some other stuff first". :pac:

    From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch’.

    — Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 Astronaut



  • Registered Users Posts: 10,558 ✭✭✭✭Fourier


    Ipso wrote: »
    Fourier wrote:
    The reason it's undefined, but it's more accurate to say does not exist:

    1/4 * 4 = 1
    1/3 * 3 = 1
    1/2 * 2 = 1

    Hence, 1/0 would have to be a number so that:

    1/0 * 0 = 1

    However every number times zero is zero, it can never be one, so a number like 1/0 does not exist.
    That's a bit irrational.
    My post only contained rational numbers, hence your joke is technically incorrect. Live in shame.


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,859 ✭✭✭Cordell


    maurv2 wrote: »
    >>> print (1/0)
    Traceback (most recent call last):
    File "<pyshell#3>", line 1, in <module>
    print (1/0)
    ZeroDivisionError: division by zero

    You don't need to use Python, bash will do:

    echo $((1/0))
    bash: 1/0: division by 0 (error token is "0")


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,518 ✭✭✭blue note


    A maths teacher of mine gave a great explanation of dividing by zero.

    Imagine €12 on a table. And every time you go into the room you take €x. How many times would you need to go into the room before it was all gone?

    If you take €1 each time, you'd need to go in 12 times. If you take €3 each time, you'd go in 4 times. If you take €0 each time - you would never stop going in.

    It was an explanation of dividing by zero that stuck with me.


  • Posts: 17,378 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    blue note wrote: »
    A maths teacher of mine gave a great explanation of dividing by zero.

    Imagine €12 on a table. And every time you go into the room you take €x. How many times would you need to go into the room before it was all gone?

    If you take €1 each time, you'd need to go in 12 times. If you take €3 each time, you'd go in 4 times. If you take €0 each time - you would never stop going in.

    It was an explanation of dividing by zero that stuck with me.

    That explanation would be far better if applied to "You keep going in and taking half as much as last time."


  • Registered Users Posts: 12,235 ✭✭✭✭Cee-Jay-Cee


    Wan Meeeel-yon.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 4,518 ✭✭✭blue note


    That explanation would be far better if applied to "You keep going in and taking half as much as last time."

    Not really, because that's not what dividing by zero is doing. And if you're using money as an example people will get confused when you're trying to take out a half a cent, and a quarter of a cent and an eight of a cent because they don't exist.

    The frog jumping half way out of the pond each time is a better example of what you're talking about (differentiation I think). Because people can imagine an infinitely small length. But it's hard to explain to someone that at the end he actually is out of the pond, but it takes an infinite number of jumps.


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