Infinity is infinite, of course.

[elperromagico]

What about infinity minus one? You cannot subtract one from something that is endless, can you?

What about infinity divided by zero?

[Richard Steele]

1. Both are still 'infinity', IMHO.

[Ptah]

2. I thought one divided by zero was infinity.

You're making my head hurt

[elperromagico]

5. Any number divided by zero is undefined.

Infinity is undefined as well but I'm not sure they're the same thing.

You see, there are definable undefineds and undefinable undefineds... :P

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

6. My post divided by your post = 1

:P

[elperromagico]

8. I'm relieved that someone is thinking along the same bizarre lines as me.

Or am I thinking along the same bizarre lines as you? Credit where credit is due...

[Ptah]

12. There is no division. It is counted {tabulated} subtraction.

6/2=3 really means:
6-2=4 count 1
4-2=2 count 2
2-2=0 count 3

5/0=
5-0=5 count 1
5-0=5 count 2
5-0=5 count 3
5-0=5 count 4
5-0=5 count 5
5-0=5 count 6
..
..
..
..
..
..
.. count infinity




:shrug:

[elperromagico]

13. I've never thought of it that way.

It makes perfect sense, though.

[mdmc]

18. i get it

tabulated subtraction
:kick:

[Lethe]

16. ask your computer what anything / 0 is? It will get angry.

FATAL ERROR in 0x03823483
DIV BY 0
YOUR ARE SCREWED
BLUE SCREEN

[Ptah]

17. Here's what I got:

[elperromagico]

20. My computer's calculator announced that it "Cannot divide by zero."

Then it cried.

[everythingsxen]

3. Infinity divided by zero...

would be zero, wouldn't it? AFAIK anything divided by zero is always zero..... then again, math was never my strong suit....

And infinity-1 would still basically be infinity... however...

In a case where one needs to establish which infinity is superior, the normal infinity is going to be infinitely (or at least one) superior to the infinity-1.

Also, infinity divided by infinity would be one?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

4. Anything divided by zero is undefined.

Including infinity.

Yes, infinity divided by infinity is one.

[cobalt1999]

9. Undefined is correct.

One way of thinking about it...

6 divided by 3 = 2 because 3 times 2 = 6 so,

6 divided by 0 = x would mean that 0 times x = 6, but anything multiplied by 0 is zero, so it doesn't work.

[elperromagico]

11. I love it when math doesn't work.

It creates much chaos.

[elperromagico]

7. Zero divided by any number is zero.

Except zero divided by zero, of course.

Then there's the thorny issue of "Love Minus Zero." Some say it's a Dylan classic; I've never been crazy about it.

As for infinity divided by infinity - this is tricky territory. What about infinity divided by infinity minus one?

[mdmc]

19. I really like that song...

...valentines can't buy her.

[Benfea]

10. Nevermind

I'm not thinking straight.

[sendero]

14. Infinity....

... plus one is just really hugh!

[elperromagico]

15. You just blew my mind. nt

[anarch]

21. perhaps infinity minus one is a slightly smaller infinite number

Which is basically meaningless for any practical purpose.

then there's this:

A different type of "infinity" are the ordinal and cardinal infinities of set theory. Georg Cantor developed a system of transfinite numbers, in which the first transfinite cardinal is aleph-null (), the cardinality of the set of natural numbers. This modern mathematical conception of the quantitative infinite developed in the late nineteenth century from work by Cantor, Gottlob Frege, Richard Dedekind and others, using the idea of collections, or sets. Dedekind's approach was essentially to adopt the idea of one-to-one correspondence as a standard for comparing the size of sets, and to reject the view of Galileo (which derived from Euclid) that the whole cannot be the same size as the part. An infinite set can simply be defined as one having the same size as at least one of its "proper" parts; this notion of infinity is called Dedekind infinite.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinity

[MrCoffee]

22. A suffusion of yellow

Dirk Gently to the rescue!