Wednesday, 1 June 2016

algebra precalculus - Why is $frac{1}{frac{1}{0}}$ undefined?



Is the fraction



$$\frac{1}{\frac{1}{0}}$$




undefined?



I know that division by zero is usually prohibited, but since dividing a number by a fraction yields the same result as multiplying the number by the fraction's reciprocal, you could argue that



$$\frac{1}{\frac{1}{0}} = (1)\left(\frac{0}{1}\right) = 0$$



Is that manipulation permissible in this case? Why or why not?


Answer



Another way to think about this is order of operations:




$$
\frac{1}{\frac{1}{0}}=1/(1/0)
$$



I always compute what's inside the parenthesis first, which gives me undefined, and I have to stop there.


No comments:

Post a Comment

real analysis - How to find $lim_{hrightarrow 0}frac{sin(ha)}{h}$

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