So in grade 7 math we learned that you can’t take the square root of negative numbers because any number squared is always going to be positive. A few years later we learn that you can actually calculate with the square root of negative numbers. You replace the square root from -1 with i. So why aren’t we replacing something divided by zero also with a letter?
In: Mathematics
“Limits” is close to what you’re talking about.
The actual “divide by zero” is undefined but you can examine what happens to the equation as it approaches zero. This is generally useful when the thing you’re dividing also looks like it’s equal to zero at the same time.
Eg: (x^2 + x ) / x
As x approaches zero the result approaches one, as the x^2 approaches zero much faster than the x values, so in practice it approaches x/x, which cancels to 1 as x tends to zero.
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