Is Dividing by Zero a Path to the Divine?

Divide by Zero?! Some of you might remember grade school when the teacher told you that you could NEVER have a zero in the denominator of a fraction. You just can't. Later...maybe in high school or college you might have heard that the "equation blows up" if the bottom part of a fraction is zero.

Hum. I guess we should blame the ZERO! But this over-simplification hides a wonderful and rather profound concept...

OK--A side bar. The actual number zero was introduced by the early Indian culture around the year 600. The first discussion of zero was in the Brahmagupta and was very cool indeed. This text captured many advanced mathematical concepts and was entirely in verse!! Its translated name is "The Opening of the Universe". Wow! Dose that conger up some thinking that can easily put someone on the fast track to Divinity?!

Now, let's get back to nothing. Ahhh...I mean zero.

0/x = 0 (as long as x isn't zero).

Consider n/x, where n is any number great than zero and we let x approach zero, but never quite get there. For example: 1/2, 1/1, 1/.5, 1/.1....etc. What's happening is that the value of the fraction is getting larger and larger. The smaller we make the bottom of the fraction, the bigger the result! We can go as small as we like...and the result is a bigger and bigger number....a number that approaches....ready....infinity!!

So we see, dividing by zero allows us to have a mathematical articulation of the infinite! The equation certainly blows up...but in a rich, intellectual way.

Talking about infinity...well, is conceptually infinite. The association with time, distance, and the metaphysical is a very accessable path to touch the hand, dare I say, of the Creator.

Infinity is the biblical concept of eternity.  Our eternal "life" is not "of time" but "beyond time". Simply put, infinity is that timeless sliver of now that lives between the past (only a memory) and the future (not here yet).

So, divide by zero and experience the wonder of mathematical divinity.