Why can’t 0 be divided by 0?

Question

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

Answer 1

So when you divide x by y, the answer is the equal amount each of y people will get that will add up to x.

So when you divide 0 by some non zero number each person gets 0, and that obviously adds up to 0. Satisfying the condition.

Now when you are dividing 0(or any number) by 0, you are dividing it between 0 people, ie you aren’t really dividing. So there isn’t any answer, or it’s indeterminate.