# Unsolved Questions - 1

The Mystery of Zero I recently got to know that some questions related to zero don't have any answers yet! Brahmagupta, a great mathematician in India, founded the number of zero in the 7th Century and made many rules when using that number, the results when you add, subtract and multiply zero by any number. But when it came to DIVIDING any number by zero... Well, he didn't give a solution. Later on Bhaskara, another mathematician in India stated that zero divided by a number would mean infinity! Then George Berkeley proved that was wrong saying that zero x infinity would mean any number, which I agree with. Time passed by, and the answer to that question was to be solved, and it just died out. But more questions came out, what was the result when you divide zero by zero? Normally it's one, but does zero have the same result too? Why is it considered as a real number then? I believe that people are really curious to find the correct answers which include you and me. So if you have any more information on my topic, just drop a reply. If not, just share your thoughts below! :)

Note by Hasna Hassen
4 months, 2 weeks ago

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https://brilliant.org/discussions/thread/infty-infty/ That's a nice definition for infinity, which could have potential ;) (even if it hurts the field axioms)

- 4 months, 1 week ago

I thought about it the exact same way!

- 2 weeks, 1 day ago

That's fascinating Hasna that mathematicians in India were pondering this question. And I would actually agree with Bhaskara (as it turns out, the discussion CodeCrafter linked to is one that I wrote!).

However, I would also agree with Berkeley, that $0\cdot\infty$ is undefined. Here's how I reconcile the two:

$\frac{1}{0}=\infty$

BUT

$1\neq0\cdot\infty$

because to get this result, we would have to multiply both sides of the equation by $0$. However, this is not mathematically defined, since multiplying $0$ by $\frac{1}{0}$, results in either $\frac{0}{0}$ or $0\cdot\infty$, both of which I would propose are undefined (and equal).

Thus, division by zero is indeed defined, but $0\cdot\infty$ (and $\frac{0}{0}$) is not. We cannot derive one from the other with defined mathematical operations either.

Hope this helps!

- 1 week, 5 days ago

I was thinking about this, but I got confused when it came to 0/0, because then again in my post, there wasn't an answer. But when you told me about 0 into infinity, things looked a bit more clearer. So thnx! :) Oh and go check out my other post, "Unsolved Questions-2"

- 1 week, 4 days ago