What Really Happens When You Divide Zero By Zero?
The answer is tricker than you think it is!
In real life or mathematics, you rarely have the requirement to divide zero by zero. Yet, most recently, I have been put in a position where I need to answer this question. This journey started when I originally investigated: What really happens when you divide by zero? Following this article, I received quite a few comments from math enthusiasts trying to prove that division by zero leads to infinity. So, I decided to entertain that line of thought and investigated: Does division by zero really lead to infinity? At the end of this article, one of the big questions that remained unanswered was:
“What is the result of 0/0?”
And this is what I’ll be investigating in this article.
Zero is a Special Number
At first glance, 0/0 looks like a harmless problem. But it is trickier than it looks on the surface. The challenge lies in the origins of zero. You see, zero is a special number. Unlike other numbers, zero has a very specific meaning, and it is easy to misinterpret its meaning. We as humans intuitively understand zero as ‘nothing’ or ‘empty’ or ‘void’ or any other synonymous word in the English language.
