On Fri, Jul 08, 2005 at 10:46:35PM -0500, Michael Martinell wrote:
>
> On Fri, July 8, 2005 10:25 pm, Carl Fink said:
> > On Fri, Jul 08, 2005 at 09:24:07PM -0500, Michael Martinell wrote:
> >
> >> Following these statements and math, one is always dividing, not
> >> subtracting. No matter how many times you divide you are still left
> >> with
> >> parts. If you then call each of the new parts a whole and divide it you
> >> never end up with 0 or less then 0. Unless you divide by 0, but of
> >> course
> >> that is an imaginary number (i).
> >
> > Division by zero is invalid. It does not produce i, the square root of
> > -1,
> > it simply means you can't use that formula in that situation.
> > --
> hmmmI distinctly remember doing that in college algebra (during
> calculus prep) a few years ago. It's true that you can't do it on most
> calculators though. The instructor did have a method for dividing by
> zero, producing an imaginary value (which are actually real) and solving
> the equation.
Division by zero is not done in Calculus; instead, a number _approaching_
zero is divided by another number approaching zero (e.g dX -> 0)
> Here is some an excerpt from a calculus web site:
> http://quantumrelativity.calsci.com/Calculus/Chapter5.html
> If you want to know q, you can't just use the ArcTangent function. First
That page has a few errors, but not in the fundamental content, and it
doesn't imply dividing by zero yields imaginary numbers. The sentence
you're referring to should have said:
... then you WOULD have to divide by zero before you can use the function ...
^
--
Rob
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