24 replies to this topic

[Prophet of the Pimps]

[url="http://www.bbc.co.uk/berkshire/content/art...o_feature.shtml"]http://www.bbc.co.uk...o_feature.shtml[/url]

:chillpill2:

[logical2u]

Well that looks like a cop out to me.

What's the point of making a new number, when you already know that dividing by zero gives you an undefinable (hence unreal) number.

[Prophet of the Pimps]

will be useful from computer calculation point of view but i wonder whats the answer to stuff getting divided by nullity?

[Waris]

Prophet of the Pimps, on 7 Dec 2006, 03:42, said:

whats the answer to stuff getting divided by nullity?

Insanity...

[CodeCat]

I came up with that idea ages ago. It just didn't seem incredibly significant to me. I figured, if you can define a new number for the root of -1, then why not define a number for dividing by 0 too? I just didn't bother to think about it more...

[Slightly Wonky Robob]

well ive come up with a new number, onity, its is basically just one... but you put a capital I over it and it becomes a whole new number, infact a 4-dimensional number, so screw him

[Dauth]

[science rant]nulity cannot be used to solve certain problems, take the case of sinc(x) or (sin(x))/x. This is an example of a removable zero.

1/x is a simple pole
1/(x*x) is a double pole only 1/x can be solved this way as a double pole has a different value in complex integration. if your computer divides by zero then make it re-peat the sum but change the denominator by 1E-12 and this will give a better answer than nulity.

[/science rant]

[Prophet of the Pimps]

Κασεν, on 7 Dec 2006, 03:23, said:

4chan's not gonna be happy.

Where the hell do you think i got the link from?

Epic flame war thread that was.

[Dauth]

@ codecat, we define i (j if your an engineer) to be the root of -1 because this allows us to perform a series of calculations that have physical significance.

Schroedinger equation
Mathematical proof of anti-particles
Contour integration in Laplcae or Fouriers space
Representing an exponential as a sum of sines and cosines

i is one of the most useful inventions ever whereas nulity is ill defined

Edit: link to the schroedinger equation

http://hyperphysics....ntum/scheq.html

Edited by Dauth, 07 December 2006 - 10:33.

[General]

There is enough complexity in math already

[Dauth]

WTF is up with the necromancy today?

@topic

Maths is not complex it is a series of rules that can be applied to many problems, You neec to learn the rule and apply them, noticing certain traits in problems makes them easier nothing else is required.

[G-sus]

well, from my point of view something divided by 0 is just 'infinite'.
logically, because you can stuff infinite zero in anything...
but because modern mathematics cant handle 'infinite',
this is where the logic ends...

[Dr. Strangelove]

It can't be infinity because then 2 divided by 0 equals 1 divided by 0 and 1 does not equal 2.

[Nerdsturm]

Yeah, but zero already skirts a lot of maths rules such as 0/0 not equaling 1, but you can still factor out of problem as if it did in some cases, such as with derivatives. I don't see why they need to come up with a whole new number for though, since anyone who will ever run into a problem in their normal life where they need to do that sort of math probably will have plenty of education in that area and not have a problem with it as is.

[Commander Abs]

As someone pointed out, NaN does the job of this already. Just noticed this was Dec 06 thread, given that this hasnt really revolutionised anything I guess it flopped.

The actual concept of 0 is quite unusual though, the idea of representing nothing with something is rather complex.

But where this falls over?

1/x = y.

The limit of this as x -> 0 is infinity, i.e. 1/x (where x is close to 0) is infinity. Take that the extra step that Dr. Anderson makes:

1/0 = infinity
1 = infinity * 0
1 = 0

No. Thats not right.

Yet strangely, maths works better in the imaginary than the real world, and it's actually more correct (re: my topic a couple days ago) that we refer to our 'real' world as the imaginary world, and vice versa.

Edited by Commander Abs, 01 June 2007 - 05:38.

[Nerdsturm]

I wouldn't call it an imaginary world really, but non-Euclidean geometry does work mathematically and you could never properly represent it on any space we can perceive (just try drawing a quadrilateral with angles equaling less than 360* ). I would just say some math works under a different set of rules than the part of the physical world we can sense.
Also, not that it really matters, but lim x->0 of 1/x is undefined(0+ goes to positive infinity, 0- goes to negative infinity).

[Commander Abs]

Quote

Also, not that it really matters, but lim x->0 of 1/x is undefined(0+ goes to positive infinity, 0- goes to negative infinity).

Indeed, you just defined lim x -> 0 for those that dont understand it for me

for me to reword it, lim x -> 0; 1/x = +ve infinity,, not undefined.

lemme reword what I was saying:

lim x-> 0, in english, means "As x approaches 0". And indeed, as x approaches 0 from a positive direction, y= infinity,,, hence lim x -> 0, 1/x = infinity. If in doubt, ask your nearest maths lecturer. It's pretty fundamental to how differential equations work, related to the amount of times you 'slice' a map of a function. If they say otherwise, they probably dont know what the word 'bifurcation' means either.

I know it's from wikipedia, but it's correct in statement:

Quote

A related concept to limits as x approaches some finite number is the limit as x approaches positive or negative infinity. This does not literally mean that the difference between x and infinity becomes small, since infinity is not a real number; rather, it means that x either grows without bound positively (positive infinity) or grows without bound negatively (negative infinity).

What dr. Anderson says is that when you divide 1 by 0 you get positive (or negative) infinity. So, 1/0 = infinity (Which, imo, is incorrect, and should be undefined as you say). IF so, everything falls apart since 1 now equals 0.

Edited by Commander Abs, 04 June 2007 - 00:53.

[Nerdsturm]

But for a limit to exist the value of the function must be equal coming from both less than and more than the value at which you are attempting to define the limit at. You're looking at only the values of f(x)=1/x as x approaches 0 as positive numbers(x=.00001, ect.) but not at any negative values. Since values such as x= -.0001 will result in negative resultants, f(x) approaches neg. infinity from the left and positive infinity from the right (assuming a plane w/ negative values of x on the left, pos. on the right). What you are talking about with 1=0 is still technically correct, though, since you can just change 1/x to 1/|x| or 1/(x^2) and get the same result.
|

[Commander Abs]

Sure, as you approach from the negative side it becomes lim x=0, y= -ve infinity. Maybe I'm getting my wires crossed a little in my explanation, I appreciate I wasn't being complete in my statement that lim x->0, y=+ve infinity

The constant through all this is the discontinuity at x=0. From the left of a number plane, y approaches -ve infinity as x gets closer to 0, and y approaches +ve infinity from the right. Applying Dr. Andersons stuff, there is no longer any discontinuity there and yeah,, things start to fall apart.

I'd be interested to see how nullity would stand in the face of complex calculus, since it's pretty apparent that anything which uses it produces meaningless answers.

[AllStarZ]

I hate you all. I hate math. My brain is imploding.

[Dauth]

As someone who has just finished my third year in theoritical physics i am getting tired of maths being truly murdered here.

So i'll say this for simplicity
In the limit x approches zero from a positive value 1/x approches infinity but the value of 1/x at x is zero is undefined
Reverse the value of the infinity for a negative x.

The two don't meet at x = 0 because it is undefined.

The argument about nulity is bogus and bullshit. If you want to solve the value of 0^0 use complex integration. once you've shown me that can or can't be done we can try otehr methods.

[Commander Abs]

Dauth, on 5 Jun 2007, 18:24, said:

As someone who has just finished my third year in theoritical physics i am getting tired of maths being truly murdered here.

So i'll say this for simplicity
In the limit x approches zero from a positive value 1/x approches infinity but the value of 1/x at x is zero is undefined
Reverse the value of the infinity for a negative x.

The two don't meet at x = 0 because it is undefined.

The argument about nulity is bogus and bullshit. If you want to solve the value of 0^0 use complex integration. once you've shown me that can or can't be done we can try otehr methods.

Thankyou One of my bad habits is mincing words,,,,

[̀̀̀̀█]

All I have to say is yay for quantum calculations.....

[Rich19]

The answer is infinity. How many nothings do you have to add together in order to get any number? Infinity. That's because nothing is an infinitely small part of any number. Simple enough.

Edited by rich19, 17 June 2007 - 13:33.

[Nerdsturm]

I think the problem is that people are trying to avoid using infinity since it's not a number and nullifies most mathematical operations (infinity x 7 = infinity, infinity/6= infinity, ...).