WHY can't you divide by 0 (zero)?

Question

For example, wouldn't 10 / 0 be zero because you are dividing 10 into zero groups?
OR, would 10 / 0 be 10 because 10 isn't being divided up?

Answer 1

Zero is nothing. If you're gonna divide something, you have to divide it BY something.

Answer 2

Zero just does not behave, at least not like the other numbers. For many years it was not even considered a number, and when it was accepted by scholars, first in the east, most people were reluctant to consider it a number. If God is infinity zero must be the devil. It works like the devil. Add it to anything and you gain nothing. Divide by zero and the world comes to an end, if you don't believe this read the second and third link I have given. Perhaps the only thing on this earth, next to politicians, capable of sinking a world class destroyer is zero.

Perhaps it was not until Descartes, you know number lines, Cartesian coordinates and the coordinate grid thing that zero was discovered. Do not misunderstand me, Descartes did not discover zero. -3-2-1,...,1,2,3 something was missing, or rather nothing was missing. It did not take long to fill in the blanks.

Answer 3

It's because division is the reciprocal operation to multiplication.  For all X and Y not equal to zero, if Z = X * Y then Y = Z/X and X = Z/Y.  That's how it's defined.

If Y is zero, then the product Z = X * Y yields Z = 0 for all X.  You cannot define a unique X such that X = 0 / 0.

That's why 0/0 is indeterminate, and X/0 is undefined for all X not equal to 0.  It's just the way the rules of arithmetic work.

Answer 4

Think about this example:

10 divided by 5 is 2 because
5 times 2 is 10

10 divided by 0 is x would mean that
0 times x = 10

There is nothing times 0 that will = 10.
Therefore it is undefined.

Hope that helps!

Answer 5

When division is explained at the elementary level, it is often considered as a description of dividing a set of objects into equal parts. As an example, if you have 10 blocks, and you make subsets of 5 blocks, then you have created 2 equal sets. This would be a demonstration that = 2. The divisor is the number of blocks in each set. The result of division answers the question, "If I have equal sets of 5, how many of those sets will combine to make a set of 10?"

We can apply this to show the problems of dividing by zero. It is not meaningful for us to ask, "If I have equal sets of 0, how many of those sets will combine to give me a set of 10?", because adding many sets of zero will never amount to 10. Therefore, as far as elementary arithmetic is concerned, division by zero cannot be defined.

Another method of describing division is a repeated subtraction, e.g., to divide 13 by 5, we can subtract 5 two times, which leaves a remainder of 3. The divisor is subtracted until the remainder is less than the divisor. The result is often reported as, = 2 remainder 3. But in the case of zero, repeated subtraction of zero will never yield a remainder less than or equal to zero, so dividing by zero is not defined. Dividing by zero by repeated subtraction results in a series of subtractions that never ends.

Hope this helps.

Answer 6

Try and think about it this way ...

10/2 = 5, because 2 * 5 = 10

If you try to divide 10 by 0, there is no answer that you can multiply by 0 to get to 10, since 0 times anything is 0.

Therefore, division by 0 is said to be undefined.

Answer 7

It may not make sense until you reach that place in algebra where you understand that the equation x = 10/0 is equivalent to the equation 10 = 0. Meaning that you can either believe that 10 is equal to zero, or that division by zero is undefined. I find that the latter is easier to swallow.

Until then, my preferred answer is that division by zero makes baby Jesus cry.

Answer 8

because X times 0 = 0 always for any value of X

so if you have X/0 = Y then X = 0*Y thus |Y can be anything 0, 1 2,3,4,5,6,76, whatever.

so the answer of dividing X by zero is not defined, the answer can be anything.

Answer 9

that's really a very very good question!!!!...because if you want to divide 10 by 0 then it means that how many times does zero come in 10 but zero has no value so it will be zero only....

Answer 10

10 isnt being divided up only if 10 is being divided by 1. therefore to divide 10 into something smaller than 1, you are dividing 10 into 0 groups. which means you started with 1 group adding up to 10, now you have 0 groups adding up to 10. nothing. nada. zey-roh.

Answer 11

though, this isn't the formal reason,

i've always thought about it this way
.01 is close to 0
.001 is closer to 0 (and etc.)
so dividing by zero is approx. dividing about .000000(infinitely many 0's)0000001

and 10 divided by that is infinity
but since infinity is an unattainable concept
you can simply define divide by zero as "undefined"

formally
divide by zero really is defined as "undefined"