eli5: Why haven’t mathematicians invented a symbol for x/0 like they have pi and imaginary numbers?

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eli5: Why haven’t mathematicians invented a symbol for x/0 like they have pi and imaginary numbers?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Math breaks down when you divide by zero. There are wonderful “proofs” you can do where sneakily dividing by zero leads to things like 1=2.

Replacing 1/0 with a symbol like i doesn’t help- the same breakdowns in logic happen regardless.

Once logic is broken, you can “prove” anything at all, even contradicting statements. That makes math not useful anymore.

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