Dividing by Zero IRL

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Everyone knows Dividing by Zero is bad.

I'm a little fuzzy on the whole "good/bad" thing, here! What do you mean, "bad"?
Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.

But there's certain times when you realise that something has been done that leads into something truly awful.

Like when your girlfriend says "Fine". That's never going to end well.

My web-searching found me this -

http://www.youtube.com/social/blog/escapistmagazine-forums

Which is actually a list of all the YouTube videos used on the Escapist Magazine forums, so by doing this...


I've actually crossed the streams by creating a self-referential thread, that references itself.

What's your attempt at destroying the universe look like?

 

[ChildishLegacy]

Since maths is a man made concept made to help us understand science, dividing by what we call zero won't do anything. Zero is just a 'number' that cannot be used as a divisor, and division does not 'apply' to it, meaning not only is it impossible to divide by zero, but it makes no sense to, because zero as it is defined cannot be used as a divisor. I'm trying not to talk shit honestly, but I just can't make proper sentences form today.
There's no "universe processor" that we can divide by zero IRL in and make everything go mental.
I probably misunderstood what you mean, but anyway.

OT: I like old mathematical proofs/fallacies to make the universe seem even weirder.

This isn't so much as a fallacy, but a definition:
let a = 0.999999.... (0.9 recurring)
10a = 9.99999.....
9a = 9.99999..... - 0.99999....
9a = 9
a = 1
1 = 0.99999.....

This relies on the fact that infinity = infinity + 1, since when you multiply by 10 you add another .0000...........9 on where the 9 is the very last (infinite) decimal place, but it doesn't make a difference because they still have the same amount of decimal places (infinite amounts)
Basically at infinity, a lot of weird shit happens.

 

[DustyDrB]

snip

My attempt at destroying the universe...
Well, allow me to respond with my own Ghostbusters clip

Dogs and cats living together...*shudder*

PS: I didn't know Youtube has a page that keeps up with videos posted on forums. Though I didn't know that had videos longer than 10 minutes until recently either.

 

[sheic99]

Since maths is a man made concept made to help us understand science, dividing by what we call zero won't do anything. Zero is just a 'number' that cannot be used as a divisor, and division does not 'apply' to it, meaning not only is it impossible to divide by zero, but it makes no sense to, because zero as it is defined cannot be used as a divisor. I'm trying not to talk shit honestly, but I just can't make proper sentences form today.
There's no "universe processor" that we can divide by zero IRL in and make everything go mental.
I probably misunderstood what you mean, but anyway.

OT: I like old mathematical proofs/fallacies to make the universe seem even weirder.

This isn't so much as a fallacy, but a definition:
let a = 0.999999.... (0.9 recurring)
10a = 9.99999.....
9a = 9.99999..... - 0.99999....
9a = 9
a = 1
1 = 0.99999.....

This relies on the fact that infinity = infinity + 1, since when you multiply by 10 you add another .0000...........9 on where the 9 is the very last (infinite) decimal place, but it doesn't make a difference because they still have the same amount of decimal places (infinite amounts)
Basically at infinity, a lot of weird shit happens.

There's also multiple infinities with some being bigger that others, which is why you can't divide infinity by infinity. It's much the same to 0/0 as far as math goes.

 

[King Toasty]

What... what's the question?

I'm going to say the question is, "How rad are you?"
Very rad, Rooty. Very rad.

 

[ShindoL Shill]

in one of my maths classes we were doing gradients (i dont know the technical term) and to demonstrate the 'unknown gradient' of (0,y) we divided by zero.
sorry if that broke your country.

 

[lacktheknack]

<youtube=iEwW6D0sht0>

Sadly, it didn't work.

 

[NinjaDuckie]

*proves that 1 = 2, divides by zero in process*

----

Let us assume x = y
Therefore, x - y = 0
Therefore, (x - y) = 2(x - y)

Divide each side of the equation by (x - y)
1(x - y) = 2(x - y)
1 = 2

----

I think this counts as troll science.

 

[ks1234]

This thread... went way over my head very fucking fast.

 

[Irridium]

^Divided by zero. Post broke'd.

EDIT: Aw... my post got deleted

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Maybe I should just have called it Troll Science....?

 

[Indeterminacy]

This isn't so much as a fallacy, but a definition:
i) let a = 0.999999.... (0.9 recurring)
ii)10a = 9.99999.....
iii) 9a = 9.99999..... - 0.99999....
iv) 9a = 9
v) a = 1
vi) 1 = 0.99999.....

This looks right, but it's important to recognise that there's a sense-reference distinction going on here, in that 'a' is defined in terms of a series converging in the limit, whereas 1 is simply a number. If our limiting terms were different to mathematical convention (say, we bounded our recurring series at some smaller countable fixed point rather than an idealised "infinity") then this equivalence would fail to obtain.

 

[DJDarque]

I am so utterly confused right now. Your dividing by zero has apparently broken my brain.

 

[YawningAngel]

Everyone knows Dividing by Zero is bad.

I'm a little fuzzy on the whole "good/bad" thing, here! What do you mean, "bad"?
Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.

But there's certain times when you realise that something has been done that leads into something truly awful.

Like when your girlfriend says "Fine". That's never going to end well.

My web-searching found me this -

http://www.youtube.com/social/blog/escapistmagazine-forums

Which is actually a list of all the YouTube videos used on the Escapist Magazine forums, so by doing this...


I've actually crossed the streams by creating a self-referential thread, that references itself.

What's your attempt at destroying the universe look like?

Recursion does not destroy the universe, google it if you don't believe me.

 

[StBishop]

*proves that 1 = 2, divides by zero in process*

----

Let us assume x = y
Therefore, x - y = 0
Therefore, (x - y) = 2(x - y)

Divide each side of the equation by (x - y)
1(x - y) = 2(x - y)
1 = 2

----

I think this counts as troll science.

I sort of hate you.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Recursion does not destroy the universe, google it if you don't believe me.

re-cur-sion [ri-kûr'zhun] n. see recursion.

I see what you did there.

 

[NinjaDuckie]

I sort of hate you.

Join the club! I confused an entire maths class with that one in secondary school. Including one of the teachers, who then went on to explain how it was impossible, dividing by zero etc.

Spoilsport that she was.

 

[raankh]

Well, division by zero can make perfect sense in some non-standard semantics, in particular on rings.

The problem of division by zero is a numerical problem, one of computer science, not of mathematics itself. Since mathematics are conceptual models, we can easily extend that model to include any kind of definition we can imagine. If it will make any sense or be useful, that's another question and one not usually on the minds of (theoretical) mathematicians.

The simplest solution is simply to define division by zero; eg {r/n => r * 1/n, r/0 = -r}. Now I have defined a mathematical entity where division zero is actually a projection from positive to negative numbers. However, this is not at all any kind of mathematics we are used to, barely any normal arithmetic will work in that mathematical model; some things look like they work, but you quickly find that the normal assumptions you make about ordering and such just don't hold. Then you know, that you have entered the Twilight Zone (aka "The Infinite Hypercube of Higher-Order Algebras").

Although I work in another field, my greatest scientific interest is autonomous robotics, so destroying the universe for me would be to build a robot whose sole purpose is to destroy the universe.

Why do all the work, when a computer can do it for me?

 

[Irridium]

Maybe I should just have called it Troll Science....?

Perhaps...

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

both of these have always made me lol hard the first time i saw them...

god i love troll science, i wish i could major in it.