Thursday, 27 February 2014

indeterminate forms - What is undefined times zero?

Einstein's energy equation (after substituting the equation of relativistic momentum) takes this form:
E=11v2/c2m0c2


Now if you apply this form to a photon (I know this is controversial, in fact I would not do it, but I just want to understand the consequences), you get the following:
E=100c2

On another note, I understand that after dividing by zero:





  • If the numerator is any number other than zero, you get an "undefined" = no solution, because you are breaching mathematical rules.

  • If the numerator is zero, you get an "indeterminate" number = any value.



Here it seems we would have an "indeterminate" [if (1/0) times 0 equals 0/0], although I would prefer to have an "undefined" (because I think that applying this form to a photon breaches physical/logical rules, so I would like the outcome to breach mathematical rules as well...) and to support this I have read that if a subexpression is undefined (which would be the case here with gamma = 1/0), the whole expression becomes undefined (is this right and if so does it apply here?).



So what is the answer in strict mathematical terms: undefined or indeterminate?

No comments:

Post a Comment

real analysis - How to find limhrightarrow0fracsin(ha)h

How to find limh0sin(ha)h without lhopital rule? I know when I use lhopital I easy get $$ \lim_{h\rightarrow 0}...