Three ways to show why you cannot divide by zero

By Thomas Brand


Once the concept of division has been comprehended, many kids are faced with the issue of why division by zero doesn't work. After all, you are able to add, subtract and multiply by 0, so why can't you divide by it?

Below are three ways that you can use to show why division by zero does not compute:

1. Make up a story

Probably the nicest way to illustrate the concept of division is to invent some stories about sharing. For instance, "There are nine marbles here (have them physically there), and there are 3 children who all want to play with them. How does one divide the marbles equally among the three, so that everybody receives the same number of marbles?"

Now make that story into one about zero:

"You have nine marbles and nobody wants to play with them. How do you divide the marbles equally among no-one?" This of course does not seem sensible, as there simply is no-one to give the marbles to. (Which also explains why the answer can't be "9", because that would mean dividing by 1, not zero).

2. Use Multiplication

The second way is to have a look at multiplication. We all know that multiplying a number actually means adding that number a specified number of times to itself. For instance, 5 * 3 = 5 + 5 + 5 = 15. And 15/5 = 3. In this example, we are actually asking, how often must I add 5 to get to 15? Now, if we have 15/0, we are asking, how often must I add 0 to get to 15. The answer naturally is: it's not possible. No matter how many times we add zero to itself, it will never amount to more than zero.

3. Look at fractions

The final way is to have a look at fractions. As an example, 1/2 means we have one pie and we would like to divide it into 2 pieces. 1/3 means we have 1 pie and want to divide it into 3 pieces. 1/1 means divide the pie into one piece. But what about 1/0? Regardless of how we try and cut the pie, we can never cut it into zero pieces. We could of course, eat the pie, but that would be a different operation to division. :-).




About the Author:



Grab The Post URL

URL:
HTML link code:
BB (forum) link code:

Leave a comment

  • Google+
  • 0Blogger
  • Facebook
  • Disqus

0 Response to "Three ways to show why you cannot divide by zero"

Post a Comment

comments powered by Disqus
Powered by Blogger.