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A long time ago, people were puzzled by the meaning of the number zero. Until around 400 B.C. to 300 B.C., most people thought it was a mysterious idea to imagine a number that meant nothing. It took a while for the concept of zero as a real number to gain widespread acceptance.
“It began to take shape as a number, rather than a punctuation mark between numbers, in India in the fifth century A.D.,” says Robert Kaplan, author of “The Nothing That Is: A Natural History of Zero” (Oxford University Press, 2000). “It isn't until then, and not even fully then, that zero gets full citizenship in the republic of numbers.”
Today, it seems hard to believe that people couldn’t grasp the idea of a digit representing nothing. Yet many people now have a similar incomprehension with the inverse of zero, which is infinity. Are you one of those people?
Here’s how you’ll know. What is 1 (or any other positive number besides 0) divided by 0?
If you answered “it can’t be done” or “undefined,” then you’re among them. But you’re not alone. If you ask 25 entertainment technicians, about three or four of them will give the same answers.
The truth is, you can divide any number by zero, and the answer is the inverse of zero, or infinity. Another way of asking the same question is: If you have a pie and you divide it among zero people, how long will it last? The answer, of course is forever (an infinite amount of time).
So why is 1 ÷ 0 = ∞ such a difficult concept to wrap your head around? Probably because very early in your life, you were told that you can’t divide by 0. It would have been more accurate to say that, if you think about the concept of infinity at such a young age, you head might explode. But chances are, if you’re reading this now, you’re probably much more mature than you were back then. It’s time you realized the facts—any number divided by 0 is infinity. Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Your calculator can't express it either, and most people seem to think computers and calculators are infallible. They aren't.
Why does this matter to entertainment technicians? The answer can be revealed by Ohm’s law, which says the current is the voltage divided by the resistance of a circuit or component (I = V/R). Unless there is at least some resistance in a circuit (R is greater than 0), then any voltage at all will cause an infinite amount of current to flow, and it would take a very large conductor to carry it all or the conductor will melt if the fuse doesn’t blow or the circuit breaker doesn’t trip.
Infinity is a big number, but you’re a big person now. You can handle it.
