Talk:Detect division by zero: Difference between revisions

0 / 0 = x where 0 * x = 0
(Discussed problem with 0 / 0)
 
(0 / 0 = x where 0 * x = 0)
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end
end
 
: 0 / 0 is NOT mathematically incalculable -- it is trivially calculable. The problem with 0 / 0 is that any numerical answer is a valid answer. In other words NaN is not a valid result for 0 / 0 but is a description of the character of those answers. (The result can be any of an infinite variety of numbers and not just "a" single number.) This is a problem in mathematics because the result, by itself, is not sufficient to prove anything. Thus, we at times use limits and other constructs to reason about cases involving 0 / 0. A less deceptive result than NaN for 0 / 0 would be "Any Number", but to my knowledge no languages implement that. --[[User:Rdm|Rdm]] 18:19, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
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