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How to Divide by Zero

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1. Math = apples, apparently
2. Less fruit, more math
3. Much ado about everything
4. A new view of infinity
5. In which we actually literally divide by zero
6. Does infinity really exist?
7. Everything you never knew you could do with infinity
8. Complexity is beautiful
9. Fielding an objection
10. The absorbing power of numbers
11. The end is just the beginning

1. Math = apples, apparently

If we’re going to attempt to figure out how we can divide by zero, we need to first get an
idea of why we can’t … or so they say.
To begin with, when you first learn about division, it’s usually in the context of sharing.
Say, you’ve got ten apples (because for some reason it’s always apples or cookies or
something) and you want to share them equally between two people. Then each person
would end up with five apples — in other words, 10÷2=5.
But what if we take those ten apples, and we divide them among zero people — what
happens then? What would 10÷0 be based on this situation? The answer isn’t so clear.
Maybe it’s zero, because nobody’s getting any apples. Maybe it’s ten, because the
apples aren’t being divided at all. Maybe it just doesn’t even make any sense! Since
nobody can agree on a logical answer, we end up just leaving division by
zero undefined.
But is this really a good enough reason to decide that it’s impossible?
Say we tried to visualize 10÷ ½ . How are we going to divide those ten apples
between half a person?
This question doesn’t make any kind of real-world sense either, but by that “flip-and-
multiply” rule you probably had shoved down your throat for working with
fractions, 10÷12 is supposed to equal 20. How is that possible? It’s not the
mathematical expression that’s invalid, but the situation we’re trying to use to describe
it.
Could it be that there’s a context where division by zero makes logical sense, but we
just haven’t found it yet?
Well, there is another way we can interpret division in the real world. Suppose the
number we’re dividing by isn’t the number of groups, but the size of each group. Then if
we ask what 10÷2 is, we’re basically asking, given ten apples, how many times can we
give away two at a time before we run out? The answer is five times.

Now 10÷1/2 makes sense as well, because we can give away half an apple twenty
times.
So what about 10÷0? How many times could we give away zero apples? Well … as
many times as we want! If we never give anything away, we’ll never run out! So would
that mean the answer is …
… infinity?
Nah, that’s too weird…
2. Less fruit, more math
Let’s try another approach. Early on, you learn that any sentence about division can be
rearranged into an equivalent sentence about multiplication. So when we say 10÷2=5,
that also means 5×2=10.
But what about division by zero? If we say that 10÷0 is some number, then that
number times 0 would have to be 10. That’s impossible, because anything times zero
has to be zero — so again, division by zero is undefined, and the situation looks pretty
bleak.
Now, one thing mathematicians often do when they get stuck is look for a pattern and
see what it can reveal. Maybe instead of dividing by zero directly, we can just divide by
smaller and smaller numbers that approach zero! This idea is what we would call
a limit in math. So let’s try dividing 1 by increasingly smaller numbers.
1÷1101÷11001÷11,000,000=10=100=1,000,000⋮
As the number we divide by gets smaller and smaller, our answer gets larger and larger.
But that means … those answers are approaching infinity again? Maybe we’re onto
something with this infinity thing! All our evidence so far seems to suggest that 1÷0=∞.
There’s just one problem. We’ve forgotten about something important:
Negative numbers.
If we approach zero from the other side, dividing by smaller and
smaller negative numbers, our answer still gets larger and larger, but in
the negative direction:
1÷−1101÷−11001÷−11,000,000=−10=−100=−1,000,000⋮
So now our answer is instead approaching negative infinity. That’s a problem — how do
we decide which is correct? Is it +∞ or −∞?
It seems that we’re at another impasse, but we’ve actually made some progress. We
went into this thinking division by zero was impossible … now, looking at limits, we’ve
got two possible answers. And they’re both some sort of infinity.

$\frac{1}{0.53}=1.8867925$10.53=1.8867925
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Graph of y=1x. Move your mouse or drag either the red or black point.
Notice that as x approaches zero, 1x blows up to +∞ or −∞.
3. Much ado about everything
Now I know what you may be thinking — “But infinity isn’t a number! It’s a concept!”
The thing is, our concept of what is or isn’t a “number” has changed throughout history.
It took a while for humans to come up with the idea of zero as a placeholder, and even
then it wasn’t considered to truly be a number until the fifth century in India. Much of the
world used to consider negative numbers to be “absurd” and meaningless for most of
recorded history, and today we still call square roots of negative numbers “imaginary” —
a label originally intended to dismiss them as nonsense — even though they’re
essential in describing the real, physical world! (Don’t believe me? Ask an electrical
engineer.)
Every time we expand our definition of “number”, we deepen our understanding of
mathematics. Infinity is no different — plenty of serious mathematicians use infinity as a
number all the time without any problems. One way they do so is by referring to
the extended real number line — just like the regular real number line, but with two extra
points added at the ends to correspond with +∞ and −∞. The extended real number
system follows many of the same rules as the usual real numbers, but with
some extra rules to explain how infinity works.

READ MORE: Properties of the extended real numbers

Computers also make use of positive and negative infinity as part of floating-point
arithmetic, which is a system for representing numbers of different magnitudes,
including infinity, as accurately and efficiently as possible.
In fact, floating point arithmetic actually has a way of dealing with division by zero,
though it cheats a little — it actually splits zero into two different numbers: positive
zero and negative zero. Using these signed zeros, as they’re called, we
have 1÷(+0)=+∞ and 1÷(−0)=−∞ … much like the limits we saw earlier!
This is a bit of a hack though, since in the real number system, zero is neither positive
nor negative — it’s unsigned, sitting on the boundary but taking neither side. Positive
zero and negative zero are both really just zero.
So as far as division by zero is concerned we’re still stuck between two answers,
infinitely far apart from each other, with seemingly no hope of reconciling them —
unless positive infinity were equal to negative infinity or something weird like that.
Hah … like that would ever happen.
4. A new view of infinity
Sometimes, to make progress on a mathematical problem, you need a change in
perspective. Literally.
Around the time of the Renaissance, artists wanted to develop a mathematical
foundation for perspective so that their art could be made to look more realistic. These
studies, along with the results of certain ancient Greek mathematicians before them,
became the basis for what we know nowadays as projective geometry.
One key idea of projective geometry is that when you represent parallel lines in
perspective, they actually converge to a single point on the horizon. Mathematicians call
this a point at infinity; artists call it a vanishing point.
 Those white lines are parallel. I promise.
Let’s see if we can use some of the ideas from projective geometry to better understand
infinity. In order to take a look at the real number line in perspective, we’ll need to be
working in two dimensions instead of one, so we’ll imagine the number line as just
the horizontal axis in the plane. Then we’ll draw a circle of radius 1, centered at the
origin. (You can see an interactive version of this construction below.)
What we’re going to attempt to do is match points on the number line to points on this
unit circle, so that every point on one pairs up perfectly with a point on the other. We
can fix one point at the top of the circle, and then draw a line that connects it to some
point on the number line, kind of like a ray of light. That line is also guaranteed to
intersect that circle at some second point — the stereographic projection of that real
point onto the circle. We can even use a little bit of algebra (see the drop-down below)
to show exactly where that projection is.
The big idea here is that every real number now has a “home” somewhere on that
circle. All the positive numbers live on the right, and the negative numbers live on the
left. Zero is at the very bottom, and at the far right and left sides live 1 and −1.

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Move your mouse or drag the blue point to see how P(a) changes as a changes.
READ MORE: Projecting the real line onto the unit circle
So what lives at the top of the circle? If we sweep out to the right, we can see that larger
and larger numbers live closer and closer to the point at the top. So, we might imagine
that at the very top of the circle lives infinity. Also, notice that the line coming from the
top of the circle is parallel to the horizontal axis — and if we were to look at this in
perspective, these two lines do indeed intersect all the way out at infinity.

But what if we sweep out to the left? As we look at larger and larger negative numbers,
they end up living closer and closer to that same point at the top, but they approach
from the other side. And if we go all the way, and look at the negative part of the
number line in perspective, then we’ve found that again the lines intersect at negative
infinity. So, somehow, negative infinity also lives at that same point on the top of the
circle.
We’ve managed to show that, given the right perspective, positive and negative infinity
are actually connected to each other, and in some sense can be viewed as the same
point, the same number — another boundary between the positive and negative
numbers, just like zero! In some sense, we’ve discovered a new number!
Let’s give it a name.
Like zero, this new number seems to be unsigned — neither positive nor negative — so
let’s call it unsigned infinity, and let’s write it with a tilde (a little squiggle, like in the
Spanish “ñ”) on top.

∞∼
This new structure, where we’ve added a single infinity to the real numbers instead of
two, has its own special name — the projectively extended real number line. It’s another
valid number system that contains all of the real numbers, but has its own set of special
rules for how to deal with our new kind of infinity.
5. In which we literally actually divide by zero
So what else can we uncover about this new number system? After all, circles have a
whole lot of symmetry, so we’re bound to find at least something interesting.
Well, based on the way we set up our projection, it should be no surprise that for every
positive number on the right, its corresponding negative — its opposite — lives at the
opposite point on the left, a perfect reflection over the vertical axis.
But there’s an even more interesting kind of symmetry hidden here as well. See
how 12 lives right under 2? This is actually true in general: given some number,
the reciprocal of that number — that is, the result of dividing 1 by that number, basically
its upside-down cousin — is also given by a reflection, but this time over
the horizontal axis. We can even prove it with a little more algebra.
READ MORE: Proving the reflections
But wait … if we can divide 1 by any number just by reflecting that number upside down
on the circle … then what’s keeping us from doing that to 0?
There’s only one possible inevitable conclusion, staring us right in the face:

There we have it: one divided by zero equals unsigned infinity. And, by extension, so does
almost any other number divided by zero (with the sole exception of 0÷0, which we’ll
talk about later).
Not only does this reconcile our two conflicting answers that we got earlier, but it does
so in a beautifully symmetric way, because our relationship goes the other way as well:
1÷∞∼=0
We’ve uncovered an underlying duality between zero and infinity, the small and the
large, nothing and everything.
Mind = blown.
6. Does infinity really exist?
This may all just sound like mere abstract nonsense — how could positive and negative
infinity possibly be connected except in some weird theoretical sense that has
absolutely no connection to the real world?
But you can actually see this connection for yourself using nothing but a spoon — or
any other concave mirror, the kind that’s sometimes called a “magnifying mirror” in
department stores.
If you bring an object close to a concave mirror, its reflection is right side up. Then, as
you move it away, the mirror image gets larger and larger, until for a split second it fills
the entire mirror, and then suddenly the image is upside-down and shrinking again. If
we use some basic equations from optics to figure out the magnification at this focal
point in the middle, we find that physics itself is dividing by zero, and as a result, the
mirror image is infinitely large and sitting at the boundary between right side up
(positive magnification) and upside down (negative magnification).
 Drag the object to see what happens to the image.
The dotted green and purple lines converge at the tip of the image.
When those lines are parallel, the image is at infinity.
READ MORE: Infinite Magnification
We’ve just seen a manifestation of division by zero and unsigned infinity in the real
world.
Mind = double-blown.
7. Everything you never knew you could do with infinity
There’s plenty of new doors that are now unlocked by connecting the two infinities and
allowing division by zero — doors that help explain why the rest of mathematics works
the way it does.
For example, we used to say that the slope of a vertical line was undefined; now we can
just say that it’s infinity (unsigned of course), and since horizontal lines have a slope of
zero, perpendicular lines have opposite reciprocal slopes just like we’d expect.
Going to trigonometry, this also means the tangent of a right angle also ends up being
infinity for the same reason. And if we want the cotangent of a right angle — which lots
of beginning trig students mistakenly think is undefined — we can easily find it using
infinity:
cot(90∘)=1tan(90∘)=1∞∼=0
Going off on that “tangent” (forgive the pun), graphs can not only “cross through” or
“bounce off” zero, but also infinity, leading to a much more symmetrical way to
understand the behavior of polynomial, rational, and trigonometric functions.
We can even apply this idea to conic sections, letting an ellipse send off one of its foci
to infinity, becoming a parabola for a split second, and then coming out the other side,
twisted in the process, to reveal a hyperbola.
So much of math reveals bizarre and beautiful new worlds when we question our
underlying assumptions, dare to dream a little, and explore new avenues of thought.

8. Complexity is beautiful
The relationships only become even more profound when we repeat our construction in
the complex numbers — that is, all the numbers of the form a+bi, where a and b are
real and i is the square root of −1.
Remember that the complex numbers are best understood not as a line of numbers, but
as a plane of numbers. We can repeat our construction by adding a third dimension (so
that we have somewhere to project from), using the unit sphere instead of the unit
circle, placing a point at the top of the sphere and drawing the line connecting it to any
point we’d like on the complex plane. That line again intersects the sphere at exactly
one other point for any finite complex number, so we think of that point as where the
complex number “lives” on that sphere.
When we go off to infinity in any direction, though, the projection always ends up at the
top of the sphere! Again we label this point at the top as ∞∼, but since the complex
numbers have not just positives and negatives but infinitely many directions, we call
it complex infinity. The sphere we get by including complex infinity is often called
the Riemann sphere, and it, too, allows us to divide by zero. The Riemann sphere is a
fundamental object in branches of mathematics like complex analysis and algebraic
geometry — truly beautiful subjects that really tie together the rest of mathematics.

9. Fielding an objection
It may seem like we’ve made some kind of universe-shattering discovery that will
forever change the face of mathematics as we know it. But surprisingly, it actually isn’t
all that new of an idea — plenty of mathematicians already know about the projective
reals and use them all the time.
So why don’t all the textbooks teach it this way? Why don’t we learn from the get-go that
division by zero yields this special infinity? Don’t students all over the world deserve to
know the truth?
To get some idea of why this isn’t being shouted from the rooftops, we need to look a
little more closely at the algebraic rules that govern our new number system we’ve
created.
A very important concept in the study of algebra is the idea of a field. For our purposes,
we can think a field of as a number system in which the four classical operations
of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division work “nicely”, meaning that they
follow particular rules that make computations easy, especially when it comes to
algebra. We can rearrange and regroup terms, and even cancel them out using
inverses — basically everything you’d need to solve an algebraic equation. The sole
exception is that zero doesn’t have a multiplicative inverse, since it can be proven — not
just assumed! — that in any field, anything times zero equals zero, never one.
READ MORE: Fields

But wait … we just found that 1÷0=∞∼… wouldn’t that mean that 0⋅∞∼=1?
That seems plausible, but then remember that 2÷0=∞∼ as well, so then we’d
have 0⋅∞∼=2.
But then … 1=2?
What the heck? Something is wrong here.
Well, most people would say that our problem was dividing by zero in the first place. But
let’s look a bit closer and see if we can figure out where the true problem is.
10. The absorbing power of numbers
(From here on by the way, when we write “infinity” or “∞”, you can interpret it as
positive, negative, or unsigned, depending on which context is most appropriate.)
An interesting thing about both zero and infinity is that they have a tendency to “absorb”
other numbers — zero absorbs numbers by multiplication, but so does infinity. When
these two forces compete, the results are catastrophic: we end up with contradictions
like we saw before.
Zero times infinity is what we call an indeterminate expression — an expression that, if
you play with it enough, you could get to equal any number: 1, 2, −3712, 0, even ∞.
For instance, suppose we did assume that 0⋅∞=1. Then, we could exploit the
absorbing properties of zero to show that 1=2. And if we can’t tell the difference
between one and two, or for that matter any two numbers, then all of arithmetic
becomes useless.
1=0⋅∞=(2⋅0)⋅∞=2⋅(0⋅∞)=2⋅1=2
Oops.
So that’s where the true problem is — while zero and infinity are certainly reciprocals of
each other, they’re not truly inverses because they don’t multiply to be one. It isn’t
division by zero or the introduction of infinity that causes algebra to break, but the way
that zero and infinity interact with each other if we’re not careful.
There are a handful of other indeterminate expressions as well:
00∞∞∞−∞
Algebra just isn’t powerful enough to handle these expressions. To do so, we would
need to bring out the big guns: calculus.
So this is why when mathematicians were deciding on the proper definition of a field,
they decided to keep things simple and sweep the problem under the rug entirely by
disallowing division by zero and insisting that infinity isn’t a number.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

While the projectively extended real number system isn’t a field, it still contains the field
of real numbers, and those real numbers still have all the same nice properties. We just
have to remember that while infinity is still a number, it’s not a real number, and it’s not
part of any field. It follows its own unique rules, and we have to treat it with care,
avoiding indeterminate expressions like zero times infinity and a small handful of others.
Now perhaps you’re wondering, “but wait — if we found a good answer to 1÷0, what’s
to stop us from finding some other brand-new number as the answer
to 0⋅∞∼ or 0÷0 and seeing what happens from there?”
If so, congratulations — you’re starting to think like a mathematician! It turns out that
there is something called wheel theory in which you can do exactly that … but that’s a
whole rabbit hole of its own.
READ MORE: Wheel Theory
11. The end is just the beginning
Here’s what I think should be the main takeaway of all this.
Breaking the rules is actually how we often learn more about mathematics — we study
what happens in more general situations, so that we can better understand and
appreciate the kinds of math we use on a daily basis. From there, we can make the
choice ourselves about what number system we want to work with, armed with the
knowledge of how to avoid pitfalls and use the numbers available to their full potential.
Mathematics is not set in stone, but an ever-growing and evolving body of knowledge. Many
great insights and discoveries have been made just because somebody stopped taking
“you can’t do that” as an answer, and instead wondered, “what if you could?”
What assumptions will you question?
What new worlds will you discover?

The possibilities are infinite.