# Why we can’t divide by 0

Quite rarely do I ever do anything about mathematics on Tweaked for your Pleasure but today I got e-mailed a question and although I rarely do requests, I figured I might as well ask this.

Basically, the e-mail was as follows:

Hi Matt

just wondered as you are good at maths why i am told 0 divided by anything is not possible. Mind explaing ?

Thanks

Bad English aside, the answer is below.

The simple answer is because we simply can not define the outcome as we can not decide on any rules that will stick for all inputs. So for example we could have;

• $\frac 1 0 =5$

There is a rule within arithmetic that means $(\frac b a) = b$ and following this rule and what we defined a minute ago that if we do;

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Need to quote me?

Ellis, M (2011) Why we can’t divide by 0. [online] Tweaked for your Pleasure. Available at: https://snat.co.uk/rants/why-we-cant-divide-by-0.html [Accessed 12 Jul 2020]

# Reason for hating most forum users…

Imagine for a few minutes. You are having a good chat on a forum about something and some user comes along and ruin it all. Yes, I am talking about that 12 year old child whom believes he had worked out the whole of life and knows everything but once you challege the person, it always goes something like this …. (the follow is an example, not a real life one though).

User 1 Wrote:

Well, you see that it ain’t even possible at this time to prove. To be honest, if you can tell me on how it all relates together then I would be very interested in reading it.

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Need to quote me?

Ellis, M (2009) Reason for hating most forum users…. [online] Tweaked for your Pleasure. Available at: https://snat.co.uk/rants/reason-for-hating-most-forum-users.html [Accessed 12 Jul 2020]