Ask William Anything Thread..

If you have a question you would like to know the answer too, simply just ask William H Bonney in this thread and I'm sure he will answer it

Ok .
If 0 plus 0 is 0, 0 minus 0 is 0 and 0 multiplied by 0 is 0 then why does 0 divided by 0 equal infinity.
It has always been a real source of wonder and confusion to me.
Surely 0 is 0 and dividing it by itself should equal 0 .

William if this thread offended you i apologise but it was supposed to just be a bit of fun because i know you like to find out things and facts..

(21-06-2014 23:46 )Fernandez Esperenda Wrote:  And William if this thread offended you i apologise but it was supposed to just be a bit of fun because i know you like to find out things and facts..

I'm not offended. I was actually flattered to have a thread dedicated to me.

(21-06-2014 21:27 )snookered147 Wrote:  Surely 0 is 0 and dividing it by itself should equal 0 .

Dividing a number by itself gives 1.

(21-06-2014 21:27 )snookered147 Wrote:  why does 0 divided by 0 equal infinity.

Take a number and define it by 10, then divide it by 5, then by 2 and then by 1. Then by 0.5 and then by 0.1. The smaller the number you divide by the bigger the answer.

Take 100 divided by 10 = 10
Divided by 5 = 20
Divided by 2 = 50
Divided by 1 = 100
Divided by 0.5 = 200
Divided by 0.1 = 1000

Continue by dividing by even smaller numbers.

Divided by 0.01 = 10000
Divided by 0.001 = 100000
Divided by 0.000001 = 100000000
Divided by 0.00000000001 = 10000000000000

Again, you see the the smaller the number you divide by the bigger the answer. Therefore, if you continue dividing by ever smaller numbers you'll be getting bigger and bigger answers, so eventually you could reach the point of dividing by zero in which case the answer becomes infinite.

Basically the closer you get to dividing by zero the bigger the answer, until you reach zero itself where the answer becomes infinite. Note that it's not just 0 divided by 0 which is infinity. ANY NUMBER divided by 0 is infinity, just as ANY NUMBER multiplied by 0 is 0.

Thanks for that William .
After many years I finally have a sensible explanation .