34 A student says It doesnt make any sense to me that when y

34. A student says, \"It doesn\'t make any sense to me that when you divide a number like -10 into 200 you get 20 because that means when you divided a small number into an smaller even number you get a great big number.\" 35. A student says, \"6 0 equals nothing. Since you are dividing by nothing, you get nothing as a result 36. You have explained that 0 0 is undefined because the value could have too many answers. A student asks, \"Why can\'t we just define 0 0 to be equal to one and always use it that way?\"

Solution

Solution : ( 35 )

Now let\'s assume that \' 6/0 \' is possible. What would \' 6/0 \' be equal to ? Let\'s say that \' 6/0 = 0 \' (hypothetically of course)

6/0 = 0 Start with the faulty equation

6 = 0 * 0 Multiply both sides by \' 0 \' (ie move the zero in the denominator to the right side)

6 = 0 Multiply.

Since this equation is false, this means that \' 6/0 = 0 \' is NOT true.

In general, the equation \' 6/0 = x \' would become \' 6 = 0 * x \' which would inevitably simplify to \' 6 = 0 \' (which is again false).