Posted on 12/08/2006 12:20:06 PM PST by LibWhacker
Schoolchildren from Caversham have become the first to learn a brand new theory that dividing by zero is possible using a new number - 'nullity'. But the suggestion has left many mathematicians cold.
Dr James Anderson, from the University of Reading's computer science department, says his new theorem solves an extremely important problem - the problem of nothing.
"Imagine you're landing on an aeroplane and the automatic pilot's working," he suggests. "If it divides by zero and the computer stops working - you're in big trouble. If your heart pacemaker divides by zero, you're dead."
Computers simply cannot divide by zero. Try it on your calculator and you'll get an error message.
But Dr Anderson has come up with a theory that proposes a new number - 'nullity' - which sits outside the conventional number line (stretching from negative infinity, through zero, to positive infinity).
'Quite cool'
The theory of nullity is set to make all kinds of sums possible that, previously, scientists and computers couldn't work around.
"We've just solved a problem that hasn't been solved for twelve hundred years - and it's that easy," proclaims Dr Anderson having demonstrated his solution on a whiteboard at Highdown School, in Emmer Green.
"It was confusing at first, but I think I've got it. Just about," said one pupil.
"We're the first schoolkids to be able to do it - that's quite cool," added another.
Despite being a problem tackled by the famous mathematicians Newton and Pythagoras without success, it seems the Year 10 children at Highdown now know their nullity.
2=2=5 for LARGE values of 2
once more with fingers......
2+2=5 for LARGE values of 2
once more with fingers......
2+2=5 for LARGE values of 2
Only Chuck Norris can divide by zero. Plus, Chuck Norris has counted to infinity.....twice.
Lordy, I hope you simply forgot the /sarcasm tag....
Computers often can't quite represent an exact value anyway, so returning a result of divide by zero as a really-big-number is just fine.
Unless your code has...oh, I don't know...EXCEPTION HANDLING?!
What a waste of education.
Actually, doesn't dividing by zero yield an infinite value?
I'll buy all of that up to the point of saying it's real. IIRC, it is explicitly designated as imaginary.
However, Grabel's law still prevails; 2 is not equal to 3, not even for large values of 2.
I learned in school that dividing by zero gives a result of "undefined."
Idiots. They haven't solved the problem. They have just said that invalid results in math are acceptable.
Division means "how many of this number are in this other number". So dividing 5 into 10 means "how many 5's are in 10?"
2.
Saying "how many zeros are in this other number" is a meaningless phrase.
I think this guy is just a LIBERAL(well he would be liberal just for the fact that he is in a classromm). Anytime someone tries to justify wacko-ism or any sort of perversion..you know what that means.
Makes absolutely no sense to me. Never cared for the "extra" math, and I never will.
The Only Funny Joan Rivers Joke:
"I know a guy who's so stupid, he can't count to 21 unless he's naked."
It makes no sense in any universe. All he has done is give infinity a different name. Any of us could do the same. If you think it's so useful in the "computer universe", how are you going to represent this number "nullity" in that universe? What sequence of binary digits will you use?
We already have Nullity on the Internet and its value is 404. Can also be recognized by the symbol DU.
Math was not my strong point. Got into an argument in 3rd or 4th grade with my teacher about multiplication. She always used apples and oranges when explaining math. She told me that multiplying any number by zero is and always will be zero. I asked her if I had an apple in my hand and she multiplied it by 0, would it not be 1 since I still held the apple?
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