make someone laugh

[Callaway]

haha.

Was that sarcasm by any chance? 

No; I know in math dividing by zero is for some reason logically impossible.  I've seen nerd jokes on it before so I looked it up, although it promptly fell out of my tiny little sieve head as to why dividing by zero is evil, exactly.

Dividing by zero is not evil, it's just undefined.  If you take the quantity y = 1 / x where x is a positive number, as x approaches zero, y increases without bound.  If x is a negative number, as x approaches zero, y decreases without bound.

Here is a graph which I hope will help make it more clear:

[renaeden]

So those red lines never touch the 0? Or something like that.

I never thought that dividing by zero was bad. When I divide a number by zero on my calculator, it reads MATH ERROR.

[Calandale]

POSIX standards require that it
return NaN (Not a Number) now.
It's really hard to get them to
blow up anymore.

[odeon]

So those red lines never touch the 0?

That's right. Cool, huh?

[DirtDawg]

haha.

Was that sarcasm by any chance? 

No; I know in math dividing by zero is for some reason logically impossible.  I've seen nerd jokes on it before so I looked it up, although it promptly fell out of my tiny little sieve head as to why dividing by zero is evil, exactly.

Dividing by zero is not evil, it's just undefined.  If you take the quantity y = 1 / x where x is a positive number, as x approaches zero, y increases without bound.  If x is a negative number, as x approaches zero, y decreases without bound.

Here is a graph which I hope will help make it more clear:

It's great to have a real Mathematologist among us.

[Leto729]

,

[odeon]

Good one, Kevv!

[Leto729]

.

[DirtDawg]

Is the fact that the overgrown shrubbery is glowing yellow the funny part or is it just the addition of a twatwig that is supposed to be funny?

[Callaway]

So those red lines never touch the 0? Or something like that.

I never thought that dividing by zero was bad. When I divide a number by zero on my calculator, it reads MATH ERROR.

That's exactly right, Renaeden.

Also, as you approach x = 0 from each side, positive or negative, the red lines go off in different directions.

[Leto729]

Is the fact that the overgrown shrubbery is glowing yellow the funny part or is it just the addition of a twatwig that is supposed to be funny?

It just gave Me a good laugh.

[Calandale]

[Callaway]

 

 

[El]

I posted a crapload of nerd humor thingies on this thread awhile back, but here are some newer ones:







And this last is for Calendale:

[Calandale]