I might have just disproved math.

[Maze1125]

I believe it's fair that I started calling bullshit when we started on imaginary numbers, as though working with ones that actually exist wasn't good enough.

Imaginary numbers are just a name, they aren't actually any more imaginary than the real numbers.
Physicists use imaginary numbers to solve real problems every single day. Without imaginary numbers we wouldn't have the monitors you're using to read the posts people make on this site, they have very real and practical uses.

The same is true of a lot of maths. It may start as someone's "cool idea", but so many many advances in science have come from maths that someone just made up for the hell of it. If mathematicians waited until maths was useful before they came up with it, then our technology would be at least 50 years behind where it is today.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

So tell me escapist, Did i Disprove math?

Mathematics has been around for nearly 52,000 years. Do you really think you're the first person (of the 107,602,707,789 people thought to have existed) to be the first to think of that?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Division_by_zero

 

[Halfstache]

James Anderson beat you to it. The answer, by the way, is Nullity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transreal_arithmetic#Transreal_arithmetic

 

[plugav]

[edited]
I misread one part of the equation when I wrote this answer, so it turns out I have nothing new to add.
But yeah, 0/0 does not equal 0 or anything.

 

[Something Amyss]

I think you lost all mathematical credibility as soon as you used "times" as a verb.

Yeah, had trouble taking anything beyond that point seriously. Which is actually good practice, since there were no serious mathematics breakthroughs here.

 

[Amaror]

So, I have an interesting math based question. If you don't like/hate math or don't understand basic algebra(I understand if you don't) just hit the big THE ESCAPIST logo in the corner and that will bring you home.

I wanted to know zero divided by zero equals. I tried to do at algebraically. This is what I did:

-The answer I was trying to get will be represented by x
0/0=x
-I times both sides by zero
0=0x
-This equals out to be 0=0 because anything times 0 is 0.
-This proves that x can be any number. for example if 5=x than 0=5*0 still is 0=0
-I rearrange 0=0x to be:
0/x=0
-Now since x can be any number now lets say x=0
-That makes this:
0/0=0
-And since x=0/0 (Right in the beginning^) and 0=0/0 also then x=0
-If you fallowed so far and remember that x can be any number then that means zero can also be any and every number. So 0 can now equal 5 or any other number.

I realize something is most likely wrong here.
So tell me escapist, Did i Disprove math?

Disproved math? No. Proved that you hardly know anything about math? Yes.

I bolded the part where you completely missed the point and made a conclusion that could only be characterized as and "ass pull", because 0/0 is an undefined expression.

So if 0/0=x and 0/0=0 then 0 does not equal x? I don't understand what you mean, please elaborate. I actuality want to understand why this is wrong past the usual argument of "Well you just cant divide by zero" That might be true but i have yet to find a person to tell me why I cant.

The second you try dividing ANYTHING with zero, you are just wrong.
You cannot divide things with zero, not even zero itself.

 

[Jonluw]

All you've proven is that zero divided by anything is zero. Hardly a big discovery.
0/5 = 0/7 =/=> 5=7

You can reshape that first expression to say 7*0 = 5*0
Now here comes the part you don't seem to get:
If we were to treat 0 like a regular number, we could divide by 0 on both sides of the equation and get 7 = 5. If 0 was a different number like 3, this line of thinking would work because 3/3 = 1. However, 0/0 is undefined. 0 divided with anything is 0 though, so the closest you could get would be 0 = 0.
Which isn't exactly rocket science.

 

[Generalissimo]

i hope this isn't related to that timecube bollards. becasue that 'math' you were using is complete nonsense.

 

[Tanakh]

Everyone who says "you cannot divide by 0" has never taken calculus.

If you are talking about calculus over the field of real numbers, I would demand your calculus teacher a reimburse, because either he tought you that wrong or you didn't learnt it right.

 

[Maze1125]

James Anderson beat you to it. The answer, by the way, is Nullity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transreal_arithmetic#Transreal_arithmetic

James Anderson doesn't know what he's talking about.
Mathematicians have studied 0/0 long before he ever did and they did a far better job of it, in fact, the majority of the very Wikipedia article you quoted is spent explaining, not only why he's wrong when it comes to mathematics, but why he's wrong when it comes to computer science too, which is the very discipline he supposedly invented the concept for.

 

[Lukeje]

So, I have an interesting math based question. If you don't like/hate math or don't understand basic algebra(I understand if you don't) just hit the big THE ESCAPIST logo in the corner and that will bring you home.

I wanted to know zero divided by zero equals. I tried to do at algebraically. This is what I did:

-The answer I was trying to get will be represented by x
0/0=x
-I times both sides by zero
0=0x
-This equals out to be 0=0 because anything times 0 is 0.
-This proves that x can be any number. for example if 5=x than 0=5*0 still is 0=0
-I rearrange 0=0x to be:
0/x=0
-Now since x can be any number now lets say x=0
-That makes this:
0/0=0
-And since x=0/0 (Right in the beginning^) and 0=0/0 also then x=0
-If you fallowed so far and remember that x can be any number then that means zero can also be any and every number. So 0 can now equal 5 or any other number.

I realize something is most likely wrong here.
So tell me escapist, Did i Disprove math?

Have you heard of proof by contradiction? You have started with the assumption that 0/0 has a well defined value, x. You have reached a contradiction (that zero is no longer unique). Thus your initial assumption is wrong. This is the reason that mathematicians say that 0/0 is undefined.

 

[ajemas]

I wanted to know zero divided by zero equals. I tried to do at algebraically. This is what I did:

-The answer I was trying to get will be represented by x
0/0=x

This is where you're wrong. Anything divided by zero doesn't exist.
Let's say that you have Dota 2 passes to give to your friends. If you have 5 friends then then each get 2 passes because 10/5=2. If you only have 1 friend and you still have 10 copies then the friend gets 10 copies because 10/1=10.
Now, what happens if you have 10 copies but no friends at all to share them with? How is it divided up? It is impossible and completely meaningless.

 

[Aerosteam]

You can't divide by zero.

We'll see about that!

Edit: Damn it.

 

[bennyboy05]

In calculus, when you divide by zero to find a variable that variable becomes undefined so no you didn't break math.

 

[FalloutJack]

I believe it's fair that I started calling bullshit when we started on imaginary numbers, as though working with ones that actually exist wasn't good enough.

Imaginary numbers are just a name, they aren't actually any more imaginary than the real numbers.
Physicists use imaginary numbers to solve real problems every single day. Without imaginary numbers we wouldn't have the monitors you're using to read the posts people make on this site, they have very real and practical uses.

The same is true of a lot of maths. It may start as someone's "cool idea", but so many many advances in science have come from maths that someone just made up for the hell of it. If mathematicians waited until maths was useful before they came up with it, then our technology would be at least 50 years behind where it is today.

That part was actually a joke, the imaginery VS real bit. However, I'm going to need some citation on the part of you stating that imaginery numbers have an application beyond thought experiment. Since 'i' is literally representing a paradox, and that this is actually the tamest aspect of math acting less like science and more like philosophy, it smacks of carelessness. "We didn't feel like figuring out where this leftover piece of the puzzle actually comes from, so here, have a Lowercase-I." This is where math sort of falls short for me. I understand the logic you place behind it, pass the course, and move on...but it doesn't cry out as the pinnacle of precision anymore. And Discreet Mathimatics is very much this. It's the metaphysics of math that gives way to some interesting thoughts, but it's not logic and it's not science anymore. You follow my meaning, right?

 

[McMullen]

There's a wikipedia article about dividing by zero. It explains that one of the reasons it is not a valid operation is because if you assume it's possible, it allows you to "show" that any number is equal to any other number.

Like some said above, if you think you've showed mathematics, physics, or any other science to be wrong with a back of the napkin calculation, you don't know what you're talking about. Minds more brilliant than that of anyone here have been working on this shit for centuries. If you could find a way to invalidate any field of science with a simple calculation, they'd have done it long ago. In fact, they have. That's why assertions that the earth is flat are no longer part of science, because you can disprove that with a stick and a few dozen sunny days in a year.

 

[Tharwen]

No you didn't. Even if you'd actually been right, what you would have done is create a paradox. That doesn't 'disprove' anything. Maths is just a set of axioms from which extremely complex situations can be created. A defining characteristic of an axiom is that it doesn't need to be proven true.

TLDR: Maths doesn't give a shit if you found a flaw in it or not.

 

[Tharwen]

Since 'i' is literally representing a paradox

It's not a paradox, it's just hard for humans to visualise it. Our brains can be annoying like that...

 

[fenrizz]

I think you lost all mathematical credibility as soon as you used "times" as a verb.

I think you lost all mathematical credibility as soon as you used "times" as a verb.

Yeah, had trouble taking anything beyond that point seriously. Which is actually good practice, since there were no serious mathematics breakthroughs here.

What is wrong with using time as a verb?

 

[Phlakes]

So if 0/0=x and 0/0=0 then 0 does not equal x? I don't understand what you mean, please elaborate. I actuality want to understand why this is wrong past the usual argument of "Well you just cant divide by zero" That might be true but i have yet to find a person to tell me why I cant.

You can't divide by zero because you can't break something into zero parts. It's just logic.