On Fri, Jul 08, 2005 at 10:46:35PM -0500, Michael Martinell wrote: > > On Fri, July 8, 2005 10:25 pm, Carl Fink said: > > On Fri, Jul 08, 2005 at 09:24:07PM -0500, Michael Martinell wrote: > > > >> Following these statements and math, one is always dividing, not > >> subtracting. No matter how many times you divide you are still left > >> with > >> parts. If you then call each of the new parts a whole and divide it you > >> never end up with 0 or less then 0. Unless you divide by 0, but of > >> course > >> that is an imaginary number (i). > > > > Division by zero is invalid. It does not produce i, the square root of > > -1, > > it simply means you can't use that formula in that situation. > > -- > hmmm....I distinctly remember doing that in college algebra (during > calculus prep) a few years ago. It's true that you can't do it on most > calculators though. The instructor did have a method for dividing by > zero, producing an imaginary value (which are actually real) and solving > the equation.
Division by zero is not done in Calculus; instead, a number _approaching_ zero is divided by another number approaching zero (e.g dX -> 0) > Here is some an excerpt from a calculus web site: > http://quantumrelativity.calsci.com/Calculus/Chapter5.html > If you want to know q, you can't just use the ArcTangent function. First That page has a few errors, but not in the fundamental content, and it doesn't imply dividing by zero yields imaginary numbers. The sentence you're referring to should have said: ... then you WOULD have to divide by zero before you can use the function ... ^^^^^ -- Rob -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
