Division by zero solved??

[anisotropy]

I read about this earlier today and am more than a little bit skeptical. It sounds like a bunch of nonsense to me, the invention of "nullity" to define 0/0. Is it part of a different set of numbers (it certainly can't be part of the Reals) and, if so, what is the point? If this is even believable then what are the implications or implementations of this?

BBC article (http://www.bbc.co.uk/berkshire/content/articles/2006/12/06/divide_zero_feature.shtml)

[Magic_Man]

One of my MIT colleagues saw the "proof" and said, "I wonder if it bothers this guy that he is an idiot." Please note: the entire point of the problem is that 1/0 is undefined. Then look through the guy's proof and see where he says 0^(-1) = (0/1)^(-1) = 1/0, and then treats 1/0 like a normal number. I can't believe they are tainting the students with garbage like this.

~MagicMan

[Magic_Man]

Just for the record, all this guy did was change the word "undefined" to "the number 'nullity'". He defines 0/0 to be "nullity" (a non-idiot would say "undefined"). Then he proves that 0^0 = "nullity," which is the same as saying it is undefined. Also, consider his little speech about being in "big trouble" if your autopilot tries to divide by 0. What good is it going to do if Dr. Maroon wrote the autopilot, and when it tries to divide by zero, it comes up with "nullity" for the answer? You're still in big trouble, only the difference is now you're an idiot in big trouble.

Later Edit:
I found his website, www.bookofparagon.com. (http://www.bookofparagon.com.) He's clearly not a complete idiot, which is perplexing. I haven't read through his papers yet, but it looks like he's trying to redefine number theory or something. I shall wait to pass judgment.

~MagicMan

[Mickey Brausch]

[ QUOTE ]


BBC article (http://www.bbc.co.uk/berkshire/content/articles/2006/12/06/divide_zero_feature.shtml)



<font color="white"> . </font>

Dr James Anderson, from the University of Reading's computer science department, says his new theorem solves an extremely important problem - the problem of nothing.



[/ QUOTE ]I was at Reading the other day, just before Chelsea came visiting. It was very pleasant. They have put together a good little team that is now playing above its abilities and finds itself near the top of the Premiership. Good luck to them.

I'm all for something to come out of nothing.

[peritonlogon]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]


BBC article (http://www.bbc.co.uk/berkshire/content/articles/2006/12/06/divide_zero_feature.shtml)



<font color="white"> . </font>

Dr James Anderson, from the University of Reading's computer science department, says his new theorem solves an extremely important problem - the problem of nothing.



[/ QUOTE ]I was at Reading the other day, just before Chelsea came visiting. It was very pleasant. They have put together a good little team that is now playing above its abilities and finds itself near the top of the Premiership. Good luck to them.

I'm all for something to come out of nothing.

[/ QUOTE ]

The old O without a cirlce

Maybe we should start a King Lear reference thread.

[Mickey Brausch]

[ QUOTE ]
I haven't read through his papers yet, but it looks like he's trying to redefine number theory or something.

[/ QUOTE ] In his Visions Of Mind And Body.pdf (http://www.bookofparagon.com./Books/Visions/Visions.pdf), which is "a technological solution to the mind-body problem", he has this in the Definitions section :

[ QUOTE ]

transrational numbers: infinity, infinity=1/0 ; and nullity, Phi=0/0

[/ QUOTE ]

I think he's related to Clarke Cant.

[Siegmund]

I seriously doubt that this is something new.

As far as "defining 1/0"...There are several kinds of nonstandard analysis around out there --- usually they work by treating epsilon as a new number, so that 1/ep, 2/ep, 1/(ep^2), etc are "different sizes of infinities" in some sense. Carefully used these CAN make calculus easier to teach than the standard limit-based proofs but very rarely do you see it done that way in a high school class.
I strongly suspect that what he has done is the same thing, just defining the 'new infinity' first rather than the epsilon.

As for "defining 0/0"... that was one of my dreams, when I had taken Algebra I and geometry. I was delighted and disappointed at the same time to discover the calculus, which is, in essence, a definition of 0/0.

[Magic_Man]

[ QUOTE ]
I seriously doubt that this is something new.

As far as "defining 1/0"...There are several kinds of nonstandard analysis around out there --- usually they work by treating epsilon as a new number, so that 1/ep, 2/ep, 1/(ep^2), etc are "different sizes of infinities" in some sense. Carefully used these CAN make calculus easier to teach than the standard limit-based proofs but very rarely do you see it done that way in a high school class.
I strongly suspect that what he has done is the same thing, just defining the 'new infinity' first rather than the epsilon.

As for "defining 0/0"... that was one of my dreams, when I had taken Algebra I and geometry. I was delighted and disappointed at the same time to discover the calculus, which is, in essence, a definition of 0/0.

[/ QUOTE ]

From my very brief reading of his paper, this is basically what he did. He just defined 0/0 to be a "special number" (like infinity) instead of being undefined, and then saw what sort of proofs and identities followed after that. Almost all the proofs that follow can be taken as true with current number theory, if you simply replace "nullity" with "undefined." The really weird one, though, is 1^(inf) = 1^(-inf) = nullity. Crazy.

~MagicMan

[thylacine]

[ QUOTE ]
I read about this earlier today and am more than a little bit skeptical. It sounds like a bunch of nonsense to me, the invention of "nullity" to define 0/0. Is it part of a different set of numbers (it certainly can't be part of the Reals) and, if so, what is the point? If this is even believable then what are the implications or implementations of this?

BBC article (http://www.bbc.co.uk/berkshire/content/articles/2006/12/06/divide_zero_feature.shtml)

[/ QUOTE ]

There is absolutely no chance that this is both original and interesting. It is almost certainly neither.