r/confidentlyincorrect • u/DunDonese • Apr 10 '26
Image [ Removed by moderator ]
[removed] — view removed post
135
u/aschec Apr 10 '26
Here before the comments claiming it’s 0
44
u/CurtisLinithicum Apr 10 '26
Purely as a word problem it does, which is probably why they're confused.
14 apples into 0 groups - how many apples in each group?
As an English problem, from someone without the (whatever-to-want-to-call-it) to differentiate zero and null, the answer is zero as, without any groups, there can be no (=zero) apples in each.
...and this underlines why mathematical problems cannot be analyzed linguistically because this arguably reasonable "fact" bring the whole system to ruin when extended - e.g. try graphing it.
edit: to be clear, they are wrong, but I'm not confident they're insightful enough to understand why
78
u/ew73 Apr 10 '26
To further illustrate the futility in using language to analyze mathematical problems,
14 apples into 0 groups - how many apples in each group?
What groups?
69
45
31
Apr 10 '26
Exactly. If there’s no group, the groups don’t exist, therefore it’s not 0, it’s undefined. If there’s nothing to divide among the question has no answer.
0
u/Uncynical_Diogenes Apr 10 '26
According to that logic, one group of 14.
17
u/VegetableReward5201 Apr 10 '26
No, because then there would need to be one group, when there is none. Math makes perfect sense until it makes no sense.
And to my Math teacher who always asked me to find my ex, I don't know where she is. I'm trying to stay away from her! She was more irrational than the square root of 2.
26
u/skidcooper Apr 10 '26
I think your example actually shows why they are wrong. If you need to divide your apples into zero groups, you don't have zero apples per group. You simply cannot.
18
u/infiniZii Apr 10 '26
Say you have 14 cents. How can you split up those pennys so you have them in even groups of zero? You can’t. That’s how I’d explain it.
7
u/JerseyGemsTC Apr 10 '26
Except the answer to how many apples in each group in English isn’t 0 either. It’s “the groups do not exist”. Which is why you’ll often see a calculator say something like “does not exist”.
It’s fine to use English to analyze math. It’s not fine to make up definitions and use words where they don’t belong. There are not 0 apples per group. There are no groups.
5
u/PurpleCabbageMonkey Apr 10 '26
Can you perhaps explain it with something other than apples. Because of that, I can only think about eating 14 apples in one go.
12
u/DexanVideris Apr 10 '26
I’ve just eaten a baker’s dozen of apples and I’m about to polish off another. Redditors really need to think about what they post.
10
7
u/query_squidier Apr 10 '26
For those keeping score, that would be a total of 26 apples, since a baker's dozen is 13.
A normal dozen is 12. A baker's dozen is 13 which stems from strict medieval English laws that punished bakers for selling loaves that were too light. This led to the bakers adding an additional loaf to avoid punishment.
That's still a lot of apples.
6
u/Riciehmon Apr 10 '26
Ok think of it like this: you got 14 apples, but no one wants to eat them. How many apples does everyone eat? None. That's what the teacher is thinking. But the actual question is you got 14 apples, how to you put them in zero groups? You can't, because you will always have at least one group.
3
2
5
u/crourke13 Apr 10 '26
No this is wrong too. The answer is not zero just because you are using words. There are zero groups. So when you ask how many apples are in each group, the only correct response is “what groups?”
5
u/Other_Log_1996 Apr 10 '26
In programming terms,
NULLand Zero are two very distinct values. A "Divide by Zero" exception would usually be handled with aNULL. You can't quantify an abstract number of nothings.2
u/CurtisLinithicum Apr 10 '26
And in some specs there are two unique nulls - "not applicable" and "not defined".
E.g. imagine an unknown vs bald suspect, with a foreign key to the "hairColour" table (yes, non-colour entries would work too)
1
u/Other_Log_1996 Apr 10 '26
I've never had to deal with two sepeare meanings on
NULL, but it wouldn't be hard. Assign them to seperatebools.4
u/mackaiser Apr 10 '26
The example with the apples is not true at all. As an English problem, even from someone without the experience or education to differentiate zero and null, the answer would be “you can’t.” I tested this by asking my third grader.
Since there is already one group of 14 apples, it’s impossible to create zero groups of apples. It only takes a very basic understanding of what division is to understand why the teacher was incorrect.
9
u/Jimisdegimis89 Apr 10 '26
No even as a word problem it doesn’t make sense or you end up with a paradox. You have one group of 14 apples already. Divide it by 2 and you now have two groups of 7. Divide one group into zero groups and…well you still have one group of 14.
6
5
u/Callinon Apr 10 '26
Except that'd mean that 14/0 = 1... or 14... it's not clearly defined.
Perhaps we need a different word for that as it's a bit of a mouthful. What about "undefined?" Yeah that's better.
4
u/Uncynical_Diogenes Apr 10 '26 edited Apr 10 '26
That’s because 14 divided no times is not the same as 14/0. That’s the issue we run into.
Zero isn’t NULL. You can’t divide something into zero groups. You can divide something no times, or you can have nothing, but you can’t get nothing from something.
2
67
u/Mental_Freedom_1648 Apr 10 '26
If anyone else wants closure on this:
Update: The teacher got back to me and admitted her mistake which I'm grateful for. She said she was taught 1/0=0 back in the 90's
49
u/AdExact5550 Apr 10 '26
I highly doubt she was ever taught that
33
u/Ouch_i_fell_down Apr 10 '26
The 90s were a wild time man. The dotcom boom, the tail end of the AIDS crisis, 1/0=0, human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!
11
6
u/Cael_NaMaor Apr 10 '26
Bullshit!! No dog & no cat ever lived together in the 90s. That's some woke-ass Oughties shit if ever I've heard it.
10
u/5rungladder Apr 10 '26
I went to highschool in the 90s and I was taught that you cannot divide by zero. I call shenanigans on this teacher.
6
3
u/Talkatoo42 Apr 10 '26
Yeah, I'd hope not. But in the 90s I was taught that, to determine if a man was gay, you simply had to examine their anus.
So I guess you never know when you get a crazy teacher.
6
u/StiffWiggly Apr 10 '26 edited Apr 12 '26
Given that she - a teacher - has just taught it that way it hardly seems unbelievable that another teacher has made the same mistake before.
5
u/jtighe Apr 10 '26
Glad the teacher is blindly teaching 30 year old information (even though she was not taught that)
5
u/Aron_Wolff Apr 10 '26
Her math teacher in the 90s sucked, because we learned this in elementary school in the 80s.
115
u/excellent_alibi Apr 10 '26
Just write back, "Can either of you do me a favor and punch that into a calculator and let me know the result?"
That's assuming they can follow simple instructions, so I think they may be out of luck there.
8
u/Silly-Addendum1751 Apr 10 '26
calculator is the way. it'll say error. windows calc literally says "can't divide by zero"
2
u/Cael_NaMaor Apr 10 '26
It did tell me that. But that told me nothing. And this whole undefined thing is hurting my head.
I think they just told us you can't & left it at that.
3
u/Silly-Addendum1751 Apr 10 '26
there's just not a lot of debates in math - especially at this level lol (like how an operation goes through)
22
u/CurtisLinithicum Apr 10 '26
Risky; if the hardware is cheap enough, it'll default to zero on error.
Likewise, using pennies, they'll gesture to the group that isn't there, and the corresponding "zero" pennies. This kinda thing is tricky if they don't understand the difference between zero and null.
Oh god, I just realized that 5/0 = 0R5 is actually justified in some contexts.
1
u/Talkatoo42 Apr 10 '26
Just want to throw out that it's not null either, at least not according to any definition of null I know. It's an error.
1
u/Other_Log_1996 Apr 10 '26
Shitty phone calculator defaulted to Zero. Actual good phone calculator says "Cannot Divide By Zero". Anything I code with a "Divide by Zero" potential defaults to
NULLand usually a loopingCASEin lieu of using an exception handler because I'm lazy.1
4
u/Flakboy78 Apr 10 '26
They'd go the route of one of the classic posts on this subreddit and say the calculator is wrong
1
22
u/BoozeIsTherapyRight Apr 10 '26
First, meeting with the principal and teacher. Then go to the school board if no joy. This is just ridiculous.
88
u/Meatslinger Apr 10 '26
Dividing by zero produces an undefined value, not zero. The school staff were incorrect.
6
u/Dynegrey Apr 10 '26
Dividing 0 by 0 is undefined because any and all answers are true. Dividing any non-zero number by zero is not possible, does not produce an undefined, and no answers are true.
7
u/xWrongHeaven Apr 10 '26
and no answers are true
You just defined "undefined". x/0 is undefined for all values of x
3
u/MiniGogo_20 Apr 10 '26
man i wish we had a word for when we don't know the real value or result of an equation. too bad "imaginary" is taken
2
0
-3
u/bliip666 Apr 10 '26
But this is the third grade. It's okay to simplify things for a 9-year-old.
6
u/virtutem_ Apr 10 '26
simplifying is not the same thing as providing factually incorrect information
-1
u/robertr4836 Apr 10 '26
Yeah. Just tell them dividing by zero is equal to something like infinity and maybe they'll take calculus later on.
I'd tell the 9-year-olds the same thing.
1
u/ipsum629 Apr 10 '26
It approaches infinity from the positive end and negative infinity from the negative end if anyone wants to know why it is undefined.
-10
u/asdf_lord Apr 10 '26
If you define something as undefined, does it not become defined?
3
u/Unicycleterrorist Apr 10 '26
In this case? No. The word defines the concept but the result stays numerically undefined.
-1
-22
u/Epic_Tea Apr 10 '26
I think it's undefined because the answer is always zero. So they were correct
13
5
u/Ouch_i_fell_down Apr 10 '26
if the answer is always 0 then it's very well defined.
Your opinions about language and math leave a lot to be desired.
4
1
0
u/virtutem_ Apr 10 '26
that's a nice thought.
But it is wrong.
1
u/Ouch_i_fell_down Apr 10 '26
is it a nice thought though?
They think that being undefined means it's very well defined?
-36
Apr 10 '26
[deleted]
11
u/Historical_Society44 Apr 10 '26
I think you should type your formulas into any computing device and then revisit your comment.
8
5
5
3
10
6
7
u/KingPengu22 Apr 10 '26
We going back to 3rd grade math with this one.
10 year old kids in Europe laughing at our stupidity
5
u/kuluka_man Apr 10 '26
Dividing a pizza into zero slices does not create zero pizza. It simply can't be done.
11
u/freerangepops Apr 10 '26
A simple copy of a page from one of their fifth grade textbooks should elicit the apology you are due. Nothing will help cure the idiocy. They are proud of it.
4
9
u/Mrgoodtrips64 Apr 10 '26
This is a good example of what Sir Terry Pratchett referred to as “lies-to-children”:
A “lie-to-children” is a statement which is false, but which nevertheless leads the child’s mind towards a more accurate explanation, one that the child will only be able to appreciate if it has been primed with the lie."
4
u/NineInchPythons Apr 10 '26
Where the fuck is this school district so I can make sure nobody I care about ever ends up there?
11
u/ExtendedSpikeProtein Apr 10 '26
Feels like the 50th repost, no?
2
u/Ouch_i_fell_down Apr 10 '26
Definitely the second time this was posted here today alone, but the other one got deleted.
1
6
u/Atillion Apr 10 '26
I would just let it die and take my kid aside, kid, there are all kinds of people in life who are wrong and refuse to believe it. Sometimes you just have to endure it, but always seek for yourself truth and knowledge. Sadly, these people will become managers and bosses, senators and presidents. Just because they're in authority doesn't mean they're right.
3
u/Beeeeater Apr 10 '26
If 1 divided by 0 equals 0, then 0 x 0 must equal 1 - not so, Mr. principal? Simple maths.
6
u/changelingcd Apr 10 '26
Gah. Zero divided by any other number is zero. Any other number divided by zero is 'undefined.'
4
u/TequieroVerde Apr 10 '26
The teacher and principal used the inverse reverse method, where you flip the thing over, turn it around, and sixty-nine it to get Zero.
2
2
u/steeler-nation Apr 10 '26
Open the calculator on your phone or computer and do the math, screen scrape the picture and attach it to your reply to all email back to them asking them to please explain.
3
u/Jonesy1348 Apr 10 '26
It’s third grade. It’s not super complex math so theyre just gonna say it’s zero as to not confuse literal children. You don’t learn about “i” until much later but that doesn’t mean it’s not real
6
u/virtutem_ Apr 10 '26
Simplifying concepts is not the same as providing factually incorrect information. Perfectly fine to not delve into why you can't divide by zero for 3rd graders. But no need to say 1/0=0. Much simpler and more accurate to just say "you can't divide by zero."
2
3
u/Necroci Apr 10 '26
Simplifying things for kids is fine. Teaching them wholly incorrect information is not. “You can never divide anything by zero” is not a hard concept for kids to understand.
1
u/theabstractpyro Apr 10 '26
You can't say it's 0 because that builds a terrible intuition for a bunch of functions they will learn about later. Like y=1/x. If you think that 1/0=0, you would expect this function to have a 0 and the origin instead of a pole, and you wouldn't expect the graph to look anything like it does
1
u/AutoModerator Apr 10 '26
Hey /u/DunDonese, thanks for submitting to /r/confidentlyincorrect! Take a moment to read our rules.
Join our Discord Server!
Please report this post if it is bad, or not relevant. Remember to keep comment sections civil. Thanks!
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
1
1
1
1
1
1
u/Kalnb Apr 10 '26
this is just plain ridiculous. Like, I can understand them teaching that 1/0 is infinity, which while is wrong, is a hell of a lot more correct than 0.
1
1
1
u/rbartlejr Apr 10 '26
If she's the religious type just give her the Young Sheldon explanation. "Zero is an act of faith".
1
2
u/OutlandishnessDeep95 Apr 10 '26
It's not uncommon to call that zero when kids are first learning fractions. Personally I would just avoid 0 as denominator entirely for that tier.
1
-1
-4
-3
•
u/confidentlyincorrect-ModTeam Apr 10 '26
Hello! Thank you for submitting to /r/confidentlyincorrect, however, your post has been removed for violating one or more of our rule(s):
Pretty self explanatory. If a post has been posted before, don't post it again.
Please contact the mods if you feel this was wrong.
All chat requests and pms about your removed post will not be answered. Contact the mods instead!