Why can't you divide by zero? - TED-Ed
Check out our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/teded View full lesson: https://ed.ted.com/lessons/why-can-t-you-divide-by-zero In the world of math, many strange results are possible...
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In the world of math, many strange results are possible when we change the rules. But there’s one rule that most of us have been warned not to break: don’t divide by zero. How can the simple combination of an everyday number and a basic operation cause such problems? Normally, dividing by smaller and smaller numbers gives you bigger and bigger answers. Ten divided by two is five, by one is ten, by one-millionth is 10 million, and so on. So it seems like if you divide by numbers that keep shrinking all the way down to zero, the answer will grow to the largest thing possible. Then, isn’t the answer to 10 divided by zero actually infinity? That may sound plausible. But all we really know is that if we divide 10 by a number that tends towar...
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In the world of math, many strange results are possible when we change the rules. But there’s one rule that most of us have been warned not to break: don’t divide by zero. How can the simple combination of an everyday number and a basic operation cause such problems? Normally, dividing by smaller and smaller numbers gives you bigger and bigger answers. Ten divided by two is five, by one is ten, by one-millionth is 10 million, and so on. So it seems like if you divide by numbers that keep shrinking all the way down to zero, the answer will grow to the largest thing possible. Then, isn’t the answer to 10 divided by zero actually infinity? That may sound plausible. But all we really know is that if we divide 10 by a number that tends towar...
