Why is divide by zero not the square root of infinity?

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Searching through past posts I didn’t see anything specific to this. As I understand it, we can approximate what occurs when dividing by zero if you graph the function [y=1/x](https://i.imgur.com/MebU9l3.png) (ripped from google)

As X approaches zero, it becomes both infinity or negative infinity, which results in it being undefined.

Couldn’t positive or negative infinity be defined as the square root of infinity? or the square root of infinity squared? Obviously not all infinities are equivalent.

Thanks

Sincerely, a person who failed math

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6 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

You can define “plus infinity” and “minus infinity” as special values and then postulate that dividing x by zero gives that infinity value with the sign determined by the sign of x (provided that x itself is non-zero and non-infinity). The result is called the “extended real number line”, you can look it up on wiki. This leads to certain complications down the road, however. For one thing, the values of expressions like “infinity minus infinity” and “zero times infinity” will have to be left undefined anyway, and that limits the useful things you can do with that version of the real number line.

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