Why can’t 0 be divided by 0?

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This applies to any numbers being divided by 0 really. In all honesty, wouldn’t 0 divided by anything just be 0? There was nothing there to divide in the first place, so why expect there to magically be a resulting number when you divide nothing?

In: Mathematics

18 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

We like things that have one and only one answer. Dividing by zero can generate more than one answer.

Take 10x/5x. For all non zero x the answer is 2. So it sure looks like it should be 2 at zero.

Now take 4x/4x. For all non zero x the answer is 1. So it sure looks like it should be 1 at zero.

In fact, you can get all kinds of answers that look right. This ambiguity leads us to say that it cannot be done, as it is ill-defined.

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