The King of Pointland

Fie Upon It (Nullity)

Remember that story from December about James Anderson, the computer scientist who finally solved the "1200-year-old problem" of dividing by zero? I stumbled upon a good, concise description of the problem with Dr. Anderson's proposed solution:

Dr Anderson's solution is that a computer should be allowed to divide by zero and instead of having an exception, or crashing, etc. you'll get the result Φ. In the BBC article he says:

"Imagine you're landing on an aeroplane and the automatic pilot's working," he suggests. "If it divides by zero and the computer stops working - you're in big trouble. If your heart pacemaker divides by zero, you're dead."

OK, Dr A. so how does Φ solve this?

I can give you the answer right here: it doesn't. And that's because Dr. A's Φ is cancerous. As soon as variable becomes Φ everything it touches becomes Φ. It's the number equivalent of King Midas: everything it touches turns to Φ.

That's because of two axioms in the first paper: Φ + a = Φ and Φ × a = Φ.

So, basically instead of getting an exception, or error, Dr. Anderson's arithmetic gets rid of the problem and replaces it with Φ. From a programming perspective it's irrelevant, if your auto-pilot suddenly computes that required speed is Φ or your pacemaker wants Φ beats per minute it's useless.

The answer is simple: don't divide by zero. It's undefined!

A more detailed, technical critique is cited, too.