#34. God's Magical Numbers

Once upon a time, I had a very petite, miniture frog that I trained to leap precisely 1/2 the remaining distance across the desk in my office. I tapped its back lightly and it jumped half way across the desk. Next, I followed up with a second tap and Freddie jumped exactly half the distance that remained. Then I gave a third tap and a fourth and a fifth. Freddie always leaped 1/2 the remaining distance. Would you believe that regardless of the number of taps, my froggie never, ever got to the opposite edge of my desk? And it was only six feet across!

No doubt you will find this think-piece to be a work of art -- or maybe a strange journey into the science of mathematics.

Zero divided by any number always equals zero:
0 / 14 = 0
0 / 15 = 0
0 / 37,012,558,403,579 = 0

Any number divided by zero has absolutely no anwser:
14 / 0 = ?
15 / 0 = ?
37,012,558,403,578 / 0 = ?

Zero divided by zero can equal any number that you choose:
0 / 0 = 1
0 / 0 = 37
0 / 0 = 412
0 / 0 = 5,000,000

Repeating decimals go on forever into eternity:
10 / 3 = 3.333333333333333333333333333333333333 . . .
16 / 11 = 1.454545454545454545454545454545454545 . . .
16 / 7 = 2.285714285714285714285714285714285714 . . .

An irrational number goes on forever but does not repeat itself:
If you divide the distance around the moon by the distance across the moon, you get a number called PI (which is always the same for any circle -- not just the moon)
PI = 3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197 . . .

An Imaginary Number (discovered in 1572) is not a Real Number: (Really!)
Example - The square root of -1 is an imaginary number since you cannot multiply a number by itself to get -1 for the answer

You can count on this blog getting some irrational responses!!!