BBC reports professor can divide by 0

[DevilsAdvocate]

The number is supposedly off the number line, so the binary representation of "nullity" might be "2".

He he he!

It is like options for a light switch. You can have:

Null: No light switch
0: Light switch off
1: Light switch on
2: Nullity

It is like if I numbered my five fingers 1-5 then asked for the number on my 18th finger. What is the value: NULLITY.

This could resolve 99-100% of all computer coding errors. The value of a variant divided by zero: NULLITY! The value of an array item out of bounds: NULLITY!. The length of an undeclared object: NULLITY! The return value of a function that failed: NULLITY! Heck, any time a computer progam would raise an error, instead have it return a value of nullity! No more computer progam errors!! Woo hoo! I just fixed all errors in all computer programs erverywhere. Hooray fo me!!!

(Of course the number is off the number line. It's on the error line. That's why programs raise an error when they encounter an off-the-number-line but on-the-error-line number: because it is an error. Doofus.)

 

[Zep]

Y'know, I've seen code that RELIED on those sort of errors actually being trapped to do serious work...

E.g. To actually make OpenVMS shut down, a divide-by-zero error in a main register is deliberately induced. This is a seriously major no-no for this OS (because it assumes that the error was caused at a high priority at the kernel level = an OS fault), and thus it will precipitate a controlled and graceful exit of the OS. That is to say, a shutdown.

 

[DevilsAdvocate]

Y'know, I've seen code that RELIED on those sort of errors actually being trapped to do serious work...

E.g. To actually make OpenVMS shut down, a divide-by-zero error in a main register is deliberately induced. This is a seriously major no-no for this OS (because it assumes that the error was caused at a high priority at the kernel level = an OS fault), and thus it will precipitate a controlled and graceful exit of the OS. That is to say, a shutdown.

Sounds like bad code. But sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

In any event, what it comes down to is:

nullity = ignore error

Super genius.

 

[enjoytheview]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]haha my favorite comment by the professor: [/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The work was developed over ten years, it's been peer reviewed and reported in seminars in mathematics and computing departments in the UK, and it's been reported at a learned society[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
i can't believe it took a man of such obvious brilliance and mathematical genius 10 years to think up something like "nullity".[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Although i guess it must take years of creative genius bottled up and released at precisely the right moment to create the masterpiece that is the symbol for "nullity"

To answer the earlier questions about binary...Apparently "nullity" can be written in binary says professor genius: [/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]There are many, many ways of coding these numbers in binary, and I've done it. If anyone doubts me I can hit them over the head with a computer that does it[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]also i was wondering if anyone can help answer my question:
the professor himself says that "Nullity is a fixed number with value 0/0"
and that works all well and good (providing you make up numbers and defy the rules of maths in between) for that 0^0 theory..
But what does 1/0 become using professor clueless' "nullity" theory? or has he only managed to make up enough numbers for one question at this stage?

[/FONT]

 

[Cabbage]

I don't really trust the hyperreal numbers, since it sounds more and more like bad math than a real branch of mathematics.

1/0, Let's see. No way to divide 1 into zero groups, and anytime you take zero away from one or add zero to one, you don't get any closer to zero. We could also find the number c where 0c=1, but anything time 0 is zero, so there is no way (ignoring those iffy hyperreals) to complete this problem. Either way it's undetermined.

Seriously, nullity is stupid. The concept of x/0 (x =/= 0) has been around for a while. Naming it "nullity" does not expand our intelligence by anything more than giving us another word to remember.

Don't confuse the hyperreals with the division by zero going on elsewhere in this thread; these are two separate things.

Hypereals are an extension of the real numbers which include both infinite numbers and infitesimals. The standard way of constructing hyperreals is to construct them out of sequences of real numbers; there is no division by zero in their construction.

In the hyperreals, if you divide a (nonzero) real number by a (nonzero) infinitesimal, you get an infinite number. But you still can't divide by zero in the hyperreals.

This link probably won't be very readable if you don't have much of a math background, but here's the standard construction of the hyperreals:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperreal_numbers#The_ultrapower_construction

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Frankly, this is just a reflection of the increasingly shoddy journalism that makes up the BBC website.

And not just BBC. I see stupid stuff and obvious errors all over the place.

A recent CNN article about an international census of marine life reported that "there are nearly 16,000 known species of marine fish and 70,000 kinds of marine mammals."

http://tinyurl.com/ycdxs2

Obviously a simple error--"mammals" should be "animals". What bugs me is that a professional journalist wrote that, and presumably at least one editor checked it, and I informed them of the error weeks ago, and yet it stands.

 

[Unnamed]

Or you're trying to transform a point on the y axis into polar coordinates, using the arctangent function.

... instead of atan2:

Performs the trigonometric arctangent operation on y/x and returns an angle in the range from -PI to PI expressed in radians, using the signs of the parameters to determine the quadrant.
The result is valid even if x is 0 (angle is PI/2 or -PI/2).

 

[Unnamed]

OK, so the idea is that “nullity” will stop a computer program from crashing. So when an value is divided by zero it returns a value of nullity. How do we represent nullity in binary? If I have a 32-bit floating point number variable, what would be the ones and zeros? Or would we need to change the way that all existing number variables in all (or almost all) coding languages handle binary? 32-bit numbers have to become 31-bit number with an extra bit to hold an “is nullity” value or all numbers double bit for the extra “is nullity” bit value?

Replace "nullity" with "NaN^WP" and you have your answers right there in the IEEE floating point standard.

And even if we did this conversion (which would be a zillion times grander than any Y2K conversions), how would code handle the value of nullity?

That's the real question. This is a non-solution to a non-issue. Nullity/NaN is an error, an exception that must be dealt with.

But what the hell would be six times nullity? Would it be nullity as well? Or a value of nullity six? What would LandingAngle be?

His axioms define 6 times nullity as nullity. Yes, I know, useless.

 

[Unnamed]

the professor himself says that "Nullity is a fixed number with value 0/0"
and that works all well and good (providing you make up numbers and defy the rules of maths in between) for that 0^0 theory..
But what does 1/0 become using professor clueless' "nullity" theory? or has he only managed to make up enough numbers for one question at this stage?

For him, 1/0 = oo (infinity). But infinity is not a new word, so it gets no press.

He defines a new line of real numbers, that includes a point "before" the line (-oo), a point "after" the line (+oo) and a point "outside" (Phi or nullity).

 

[Iamme]

The scary thing is how the kids lap it up and "totally" accept the teacher's word. It shows what a position of great responsibility teachers hold, and how they step over the line when they decide to teach their flights of fancy as "the truth".

Good point. But I guess that would be natural since teachers are adults and kids are kids.

Unless of course, you are that kid who finked on his teacher that his teacher was ram-rodding creationism down the classes throat, and the kid was clever enough to tape record the teacher and a meeting ensued with higher ups and the teacher was caught lying. I think this was on one of the news channels either last night or the night before. (I'm getting forgetful in my old age.)

 

[69dodge]

I must be clevererer than this professor, because I have invented a way to divide by zero without invoking any "numbers off the number line".

1. I define "numerator" as the number of indivisible marbles I have.
2. I define "denominator" as the number of people, excluding myself, I give marbles to.
3. I define "division" as the number of marbles each person has when I have given each person an equal number of marbles.
4. I define "remainder" as the number of marbles I have left when I gave all those people an equal number of marbles.

Examples

1. Suppose I have 2 marbles, and there are 2 people I can give marbles to. That means they get 1 each, and I have lost all my marbles. 2/2=1, remainder 0.
2. Suppose I have 3 marbles, and there are 2 people. 3/2=1 remainder 1
3. 4 marbles, 2 people: 4/2=2 remainder 0.

Now dividing by zero

1. Suppose I have 2 marbles and no one to give it to. That means I am left with 2 marbles: 2/0=0 remainder 2.
2. Suppose I have 100 marbles and no one to give it to: 100/0=0 remainder 100.

To put it in more general terms:
x/0=0 with a of remainder x.

That also works with 0/0:
Suppose I have 0 marbles and no one to give marbles to. That means I am left with 0 marbles and nobody gets any. 0/0=0 remainder 0.

Find the flaw in that, mathematologists!

I suspect you wrote this whole thing just for the "I have lost all my marbles" line.

But, to be serious for a moment, when dividing by zero, you're right about the remainder---it's just the numerator---but why is the quotient zero? It could just as easily be any other number. How are we supposed to decide how many marbles each person gets, when there aren't any people? Giving 10 marbles to each person is the same as giving 0 marbles to each person: no marbles get used up because there's nobody to give them to.

 

[tracer]

No need to crash the plane if the computer encounter a division by zero.

Didn't you see the NBC made-for-TV movie Y2K ?

When the airliners crossed the International Date Line, their engines instantly stopped working and they plummetted from the sky. Just like in real life.

 

[enjoytheview]

I'd really love to find a way for this whole thing to work because it must suck to spend 10 years of your life on a theory that is about as useful as sunscreen in the arctic. Unfortunately the more i try to make this work, the less it makes sense and the closer i get to having an aneurism.
I just feel sorry for those poor kids who actually "get it" because what they're "getting" won't exactly help them out when it comes to university or any other forms of maths. I'll never complain about my maths teachers again.

 

[CapelDodger]

Funny, the Y2K problem was being fixed many years before the public became generally aware of it.

In many cases fixing it just meant bringing forward much-needed upgrades by a few years. Sadly there's little account taken of that when the "cost" of Y2K is made up.

All the same, a nice little earner for old Cobol hands who didn't grow up expecting documentation. I never did get around to doing much myself .

 

[CapelDodger]

I just feel sorry for those poor kids who actually "get it" because what they're "getting" won't exactly help them out when it comes to university or any other forms of maths. I'll never complain about my maths teachers again.

The following is more or less verbatim, from a maths teacher of mine forty years ago (when I started high school and it stopped being "sums") :

You may have heard that the Eleventh Commandment is "Thou Shalt Not Get Caught". That is, in fact, the Twelfth Commandment. The Eleventh Commandment is "Thou Shalt Not Divide By Zero".

I was mostly lucky with my maths teachers .

 

[andyandy]

I'd really love to find a way for this whole thing to work because it must suck to spend 10 years of your life on a theory that is about as useful as sunscreen in the arctic. .

sunscreen would be pretty useful - what with the high UV levels and all.....

now if you'd said as useful as a one-legged man at an arse kicking contest.......

 

[enjoytheview]

Hmm true. Bad choice there. The one-legged man and the arse kicking contest works nicely. just pretend thats what i said.

 

[Blert]

After all this time...

On a related note, I've just solved the Riemann hypothesis!!!11!!1

The answer is a symbol of my own devising that means "true" if the Riemann hypothesis is true and "false" otherwise.

The Clay Mathematics Institute should be contacting me any time now with my million bucks!11!!!1!