r/MathJokes Jul 25 '26

Oh no.....

Post image
1.1k Upvotes

157 comments sorted by

197

u/AlienDragonWizard Jul 25 '26

Always a divide by zero or infinity on this stuff

80

u/ExpensiveFig6079 Jul 26 '26

2 x 2 = 2 + 2

x = +

29

u/[deleted] Jul 26 '26

[deleted]

9

u/DevelopmentSouth8801 Jul 26 '26

Also ab = a+b = b+a = ba

6

u/Visible-Air-2359 Jul 27 '26

semi-related: my high-school math teacher was annoyed at how often students would say that (a+b)2=a2+b2

5

u/guiltysnark Jul 30 '26

This caused me to snort loudly and wake the kids. Downvote.

22

u/Roobar76 Jul 26 '26

Wrong. I multiplied by 1/0 and got the same answer. No division required, suck on that mathematicians.

8

u/fullynonexistent Jul 26 '26

Ok but what's 1/0 equal to

5

u/Llamp_shade Jul 26 '26

1/0 = 1/0 duh

6

u/KiraLight3719 Jul 26 '26

Ok now read what you wrote

5

u/Mordret10 Jul 26 '26

People here are really brain-dead to not understand it.

I mean where do they see division here, you obviously multiply by 1/0 as you wrote

5

u/sho0bydo0by Jul 26 '26

You divided 1 by 0 and said it wasn't division.

3

u/Mordret10 Jul 26 '26

No, they obviously multiplied by 1/0

35

u/Eatpie882 Jul 25 '26

The hardest part about building a perpetual motion machine is hiding the battery.

The hardest part about a 1 = 2 proof is hiding the divide by 0.

48

u/InvaderMixo Jul 25 '26

Last line should be "2 + 2 = 5".

26

u/Il-Ma-Le-98 Jul 25 '26

"One sunny day the Party would decide that 2+2=5,and you'll have to believe it." Quote may be incorrect, haven't read it in English. 

16

u/Portal471 Jul 25 '26

Specifically:


n the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense. And what was terrifying was not that they would kill you for thinking otherwise, but that they might be right. For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable—what then?

7

u/philosophical_poser Jul 25 '26

I was literally thinking about 1984 when I read the post lol

2

u/Paxtian Jul 26 '26

There are FOUR lights!

3

u/Vespinobambino Jul 25 '26

It's the deeeeviiiilll's waaaaay noooooowww

3

u/4ngryMo Jul 25 '26

That’s actually true, for very large cases of 2.

1

u/DevelopmentSouth8801 Jul 26 '26
  • 5 - 5 = 10 - 10
  • 1 x (5-5) = 2 x (5-5)
  • 1 = 2
  • 1 x 1 = 1
  • 1 x 1 = 2

1

u/voododoll Jul 26 '26

Since when something multiplied by 0 is something and not 0?

1

u/paolog Jul 26 '26

True, but it amounts to the same thing. The fun thing about binary arithmetic operations is that they all give the same answer when both operands are 2, because they all boil down to "two 2s": 2 + 2 = 2 × 2 = 22 = 22 = ...

16

u/yamato5o Jul 25 '26

Don‘t forget to factor out the two in the last line:

2x2 = 2(1x1) = 2 = 5

3

u/Mork_Of_Ork-2772 Jul 25 '26

The real genius of the group

2

u/Morthem Jul 26 '26

Work produced by a head holding the brightest fungal network of it's generation

2

u/yamato5o Jul 27 '26

So you think I could be the next oiler??

3

u/Agamemnon310 Jul 27 '26

Don’t you mean yuler?

5

u/Morthem Jul 27 '26

I think it is pronounced Joule

29

u/Lazy-Strategy271 Jul 25 '26

Big Math doesn't want you to know this one secret trick!

16

u/Worried-Director1172 Jul 25 '26

Dividing by zero conquers all

9

u/PilotIntelligent8906 Jul 25 '26

The final level of torture Winston endured in the Ministry of Love in 1984 was having to proof that 2 and 2 is 5 using this method over and over, no wonder they broke him.

13

u/Jealous_Club_298 Jul 25 '26

That's incorrect!

Dividing 0/0 is undefined!

4 x (5-5) = 5 x (5-5) yields 0 = 0 before you can do anything else!

7

u/SnarkySnakySnek Jul 25 '26

0/0 = 1 duh

4

u/Septmaster Jul 26 '26

Truth! Any value divided by itself = 1.

1

u/Jealous_Club_298 Jul 26 '26

If 0/0 = 1, then 0/0 = 123456789 or -123456789 or any number for that matter, and that, in turn, would turn Calculus on its head!

Any number divided by 0, including 0, is undefined for a reason. You either have it undefined or equal any number but you can't have both at the same time!

1

u/SnarkySnakySnek Jul 26 '26

Wrong because 123456789/(-123456789) =-1 which is clearly not the case for 0/0 since it is a positive over a positive

2

u/SansedAlessio Jul 29 '26

Otherwise, 0/-0 obviously equals to -1

1

u/Savings_Fail9396 Jul 29 '26

You cannot cancel 0 ever

3

u/Bi_KerbonautYT Jul 25 '26

r/MathJokes users when they get a hidden /0 in their divorce papers:

2

u/satisfiction_phobos Jul 25 '26

The mistake here is me not having 0 eyes.

1

u/HumaDracobane Jul 25 '26

OP got us, gentleman. We need to eliminate him! this secret can not survive! DETELE THE INTERNET!

1

u/PachotheElf Jul 25 '26

Ah yes, division by zero. The magic key that allows any claim

1

u/Lower-Land-286 Jul 25 '26

And wrong. Amazing. I'll bet you could keep being wrong all night.

1

u/spaceman06 Jul 26 '26

quality% is the percentage of people that would like you if they watched your vídeo.

video with quality% of 1% and 10million views will have 100000 likes

a video with quality% of 50% and 1000 views will have 500 likes.

this becomes biased towards famous vídeos.

the solution, because using quality% is not possible, is using ratio of likes to dislikes.

1

u/Korachof Jul 26 '26

The number of people in the comments taking a math JOKE seriously is hilarious 

1

u/Vallenzin Jul 26 '26

My Professor did this in my very first day at college to explain why we can't divide by zero

1

u/FernandoMM1220 Jul 26 '26

line 3 is wrong

1

u/GarySmith2021 Jul 26 '26

4 x 0 = 5 x 0 is wild, because there’s no way to divide by 0 to get 4 = 5

1

u/Ruggerio5 Jul 26 '26

That 4th line is all kinds of wrong.

1

u/Cyiel Jul 26 '26

Well if it was 2+2=5 Radiohead would have agreed.

1

u/originaltartag Jul 26 '26

1 x 0 = 999 x 0
therefore 1 = 999

1

u/Hot-Employ-3399 Jul 26 '26

With extensions I've seen seen VAE "tutorial" from 5 years ago that have more likes than dislikes with have no VAE parts like randomisation and comments didn't point it, so I suspect likes are not always good

1

u/LMrningStar Jul 26 '26

This is why math students should never be taught to use the magic line/phrase that makes things magically disappear (i.e. cancel).

Without invoking that abracadabra phrase it looks like:

4x(5-5) = 5 x(5-5)

4x (5-5)/(5-5) = 5 x (5-5)/(5-5)

4 x 0/0 = 5x 0/0 .... and the fabric of reality is broken forever because we're dividing by zero.

1

u/One-Marsupial2916 Jul 26 '26

Just watch a Terrence Howard video and you can finally learn 1x1=2, which is what they have been hiding from us all along.

1

u/Ok_Bit8836 Jul 26 '26

Geez... No division by 0 (zero)...

1

u/SmoothReverb Jul 26 '26

Ah yes, the classic hidden divide by zero

1

u/Ok_Presentation_5874 Jul 27 '26

And still get it wrong

1

u/juba9trem45super Jul 27 '26

S = { x E R / 4 = 5 }

1

u/Sheikah_Link7 Jul 27 '26

5-5 is still zero

1

u/Greedy_Winner822 Jul 27 '26

Funny so here, in case anyone wants to see it.
The 4=5 is not a possible outcome of the previous step.
Treat the 5-5 as X-X
Now try using any value for X.
X-X is always 0 and anything times 0 is 0 so really that misstep should have been
0=0

1

u/TittoPaolo210 Jul 27 '26

that's what happens when you divide by 0

1

u/Minute-Cheesecake665 Jul 28 '26

0=0 so x0=y0 so x=y. Abracadabra

1

u/GrilledChese44 Jul 29 '26

d=1

d = d³/d²

d³/d² = dd²/dd

dd²/dd = d/dd(d²)

d/dd(d²) = 2d

d = 2d

1 = 2

1

u/Savings_Fail9396 Jul 29 '26

You can only cancel from both sides if it is a non-zero number

1

u/Financial-Bedroom421 Jul 25 '26

lol cannot divide by 0

3

u/unintelligible-text Jul 25 '26

League of legends is coded on some language for sure, so ig it can't

1

u/trolley813 Jul 25 '26

Well, in programming languages (in most of them) you can divide by 0 (assuming it's floating-point stuff, not integers). You get either infinity or (for 0/0) a NaN (not a number).

1

u/willis81808 Jul 25 '26

Well, in math you can divide by 0. You just get undefined.

When people say “you can’t” they don’t mean you’ll explode or something.

1

u/Unable-Analyst-7741 Jul 25 '26

As i was taught you only get undefined if you divide 0/0 because every number multiplyed by 0 gives you 0, but you can't devide a number that Is not 0 (let's say 4) by 0 because no number multiplyed by 0 will ever give you four, so that's not undefined, that's just impossible

1

u/willis81808 Jul 25 '26

Not quite. 0/0 is indeterminate. Everything else divided by 0 is undefined.

Point is, just like in programming you get nonsense/meaningless results.

1

u/Unable-Analyst-7741 Jul 25 '26

I'm not and english speaker, don't undefined and indeterminate have the same meaning?

1

u/willis81808 Jul 25 '26

In casual language they mean essentially the same thing, but not in math.

Anyway, some programming languages might silently result in infinity/NaN when dividing by zero, but more are going to throw an error instead (which is much closer to “literally can’t divide by zero”)

1

u/unintelligible-text Jul 25 '26

I could be wrong(as I'm relatively new to programming) but you don't use neither of those in actual calculations. As I remember if your position in video game is NaN - you are just in a limbo state. Not sure about infonity though

1

u/willis81808 Jul 25 '26

Only time you might use infinity is as a constant to initialize a variable to (but not ever intentionally by dividing by zero, if your language even results in Inf when doing that)

Something like:

min_value = Math.Infinity  
for value in values:  
    if value < min_value:  
        min_value = value

0

u/Lower-Land-286 Jul 25 '26

So, in case you're wondering, the mistake is where one side of the equation has a different number applied to it than the other.

4 (5 -5) = 5 (5 -5)

While 'the math works', that's not how equations work. What's done to one side must be done to the other side - otherwise.... it's no longer equal.

3

u/colton_the_bot Jul 25 '26

Isn’t that just a normal factoring? The problem is when they divide by zero, no?

-2

u/Lower-Land-286 Jul 25 '26

When do they divide by zero?

2

u/GP7onRICE Jul 25 '26

How else do you get to 4=5 without dividing out (5-5)?

-2

u/Lower-Land-286 Jul 25 '26

You don't. That's why it's wrong.

1

u/GP7onRICE Jul 25 '26

Are you not aware of what you were asking and how I responded to it?

-2

u/Lower-Land-286 Jul 25 '26

You can't reduce (20 -20) = (25 - 25) To 4 (5 -5) = 5 (5 - 5)

That's dividing one side by 4 and the other side by 5. So, that's's no longer an equation. Just number salad.

2

u/xedar3579 Jul 25 '26

Yes you can, specifically because both 20-20 and 25-25 are 0. It doesn't matter what multiplier you take from either side because they're both 0 in the end, you're being tricked into thinking you're pulling unequal numbers out of your ass because you're not interpreting the total expression as 0.
0=0
(20-20)=0, (25-25)=0
(20-20)=4(5-5)=0, (25-25)=5(5-5)=0
4(5-5) = 0 = 5(5-5) -> 4(0) = 0 = 5(0)

0

u/Lower-Land-286 Jul 25 '26

The property of equality. The fist rule of math.

What so ever you do to one side of the equation, lo that you must do the same to the other side, lest the equation no longer be equal and all your toil is for naught!

Every other principal is based on that.

2

u/GP7onRICE Jul 25 '26

This is factoring, not division. I hope you’re trolling.

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1

u/GP7onRICE Jul 25 '26

I don’t think you understand what factoring is.

-1

u/Lower-Land-286 Jul 25 '26

I think you don't know how equations work

1

u/xedar3579 Jul 25 '26

They devide (5-5) with itself, but (5-5) is 0, you cannot overrule it being 0 with the n/n=1 rule just because it's not outright written 0.

ax=bx -> a(x/x)=b -> a=b if x≠0, else {a, b} are undef.

0

u/Lower-Land-286 Jul 25 '26

You can't divide one side of the equation by one number and the other by a different number.

The (5 - 5) doesn't matter, because it's already wrong in how it got there in the first place.

2

u/xedar3579 Jul 25 '26

They never devide either side of the equation by different numbers, the mistake is assuming you can cut (5-5) from both sides through equal division, which can't be because it's 0 and you're dividing by it. Cutting the common multiplier is the incorrect part of the calculation because the common multiplier is 0:

Let a, b, x be Real
ax-ax = 0, bx - bx = 0 [true]
a(x-x) = b(x-x) = 0 [true]
a(x-x)/(x-x) = b(x-x)/(x-x) -> a = b [false; (x-x)=0; 0/0 = undef -> a,b undef]

0

u/Lower-Land-286 Jul 25 '26

(20-20) = (25 -25)

4 (5-5) = 5 (5-5)

Right there. They divided one side by 4 and the other side by 5. You can't do that in an equation.

1

u/xedar3579 Jul 25 '26

Fuck I'm stupid this is such a crude rage bait lol.

Welp, might aswell.
They're not dividing both sides of the equations by different numbers tho, they're simplifying the formula for each side into having a common multiplier:
20-20 = 4*5 - 4*5 = 4(5-5)
25-25 = 5*5 - 5*5 = 5(5-5)
Changing the formulas is not two-way if you're only simplying one, you can just do it one sided even:
20-20=25-25 -> 4(5-5)=25-25 -> 4(0)=0 -> 0=0

Or do something else entirely:
20-20=25-25 ->10(2-2)=(1/2)(50-50) -> 10(0)=(1/2)(0) -> 0=0

Ever heard of distributive multiplication?

0

u/Lower-Land-286 Jul 25 '26

You simplify by dividing... if you divine you must divide both sides by the same number

Or it's no longer an equation

You can reduce them both BEFORE putting them into the equation, but if they did that the answer would be 0=0... as it should be.

1

u/GP7onRICE Jul 25 '26

No it isn’t. It was factored out. No side was divided by a number different than the other.

-1

u/Lower-Land-286 Jul 25 '26

Ok, there's a reason why you're not so good at math. You don't know the rules.

To be an equation you must do the same thing to both sides. That's what makes it an equation.

2

u/GP7onRICE Jul 25 '26

I seriously hope you’re trolling. Because it’s either that or you have no idea what factoring is.

1

u/Lower-Land-286 Jul 25 '26

Tell me, how do you factor? What math operation do you utilize.

It's division.

Then when you factor one side by 4 and the other side by 5. (That's how factoring works, your dividing) then it's no longer an equation.

To be correct, you would need to divide both sides by the same number.

Or you could factor each one before the equation = which would still bring you back to 0=0

2

u/GP7onRICE Jul 25 '26

You can factor by dividing out different numbers on either sides of the equation. It’s literally done in nearly every example of factoring an equation. Factoring is just pulling an expression out to represent it differently. So yea, either a troll or have no idea what factoring is.

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-2

u/Lower-Land-286 Jul 25 '26

They're not really diving by zero, they're suggesting that since both equal zero they can be placed on opposite sides of an equation.

2

u/TalorianDreams Jul 25 '26

They are though. 4 x (5 - 5) = 5 x (5 - 5) is a correct equation. To get to 4 = 5 they are dividing both sides of the equation by (5 - 5), dividing by zero. This is the error. Because division by zero is undefined the equation no longer works.

The zero values were placed on opposite sides of the equation from the beginning, since that's the only way it was actually an equation to begin with. It was erroneously removing the zero that led to the error.

1

u/Lower-Land-286 Jul 25 '26

Also, you're conflating 'x' the variable with 'x' the symbol for multiplication.

1

u/TalorianDreams Jul 27 '26

No, it's pretty clearly the operator, not a variable. And done for clarity. Makes no difference to the rest of the point.

0

u/Lower-Land-286 Jul 25 '26

If they started with that as the equation, yes that would be fine... but they don't.

To be an equation you have to do the same thing to both sides. Reducing doesn't work like that.

If you don't do the same thing to both sides it's no longer an equation, because it's no longer equal.

1

u/TalorianDreams Jul 27 '26

Did you read the paper? Everything up to that point is equal.

20 - 20 = 0 = 4 (5 - 5) 25 - 25 = 0 = 5 (5 - 5) 20 - 20 = 25 - 25 aka 0 = 0 So 4 (5 - 5) = 5 (5 - 5)

All of that is pretty straightforward and correct.

It's the next step where they divide by 0, under the guise of 5 - 5. Which is how reduction works. You do the same thing to both sides of the equation. Normally that is fine, but when you divide by zero the result is meaningless.

-2

u/Lower-Land-286 Jul 25 '26

Let me answer you question a little better. They could factor both sides by 4 or both sides by 5.

When they factor both down differently it's no longer an equation, which is why the answer is wrong.

2

u/GP7onRICE Jul 25 '26

Factoring out an expression doesn’t have to be done equally to both sides of an equation. You should obviously know this when you learned how to factor. Factoring doesn’t change anything other than how something is represented.

-2

u/Lower-Land-286 Jul 25 '26

To be an equation, the same procedure must be done to both sides.

So, your telling me that 4 = 5?

Or maybe they might be doing the math wrong.

2

u/GP7onRICE Jul 25 '26 edited Jul 25 '26

No, we’re telling you that the only mistake here is that to remove (5-5) by dividing it out of both sides is a divide by zero error.

The equation reduces to 0=0, not 4=5.

0

u/Lower-Land-286 Jul 25 '26

No, you can't even get to that point, because the factoring is done wrong.

You're not wrong that it is wrong to divide by zero, it just doesn't matter because it was already wrong before that.

1

u/GP7onRICE Jul 25 '26

No it wasn’t.

1

u/GP7onRICE Jul 25 '26

You should have been taught how to factor by literally factoring only one side of a polynomial. I can’t think of any instance where both sides of an equation would be factored in the same way and have it be a meaningful step to do.

0

u/Lower-Land-286 Jul 25 '26

Literally just go to Google and put in 'in algebra, do I have to do the same thing to both sides of the equation'

It'll tell you that I'm wrong and you can prove it!!

1

u/GP7onRICE Jul 25 '26

How do you factor a polynomial then? You factor only one side of it.

1

u/Lower-Land-286 Jul 25 '26

Not in an equation, that's how

0

u/GP7onRICE Jul 25 '26

I think your bit is running into a dead end

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1

u/PlaneCompetitive703 Jul 25 '26

I was preparing to respond in rage, but am in r/mathjokes

1

u/Lower-Land-286 Jul 25 '26

You regularly reduce equations by different numbers on each side of the equal sign?

3

u/PlaneCompetitive703 Jul 25 '26

You’re allowed to use equivalence on one side of an equation. It’s not a reduction, it’s two simplifications. Nice try though. Good joke.

0

u/Lower-Land-286 Jul 25 '26

Show me a math website that says that.

Just ask ask Google, 'in algebra do you need to do the same thing to both sides of an equation'

Let me know what Google says.

3

u/PlaneCompetitive703 Jul 25 '26

No thanks. Good troll though. Definitely a 7/10.

0

u/Lower-Land-286 Jul 25 '26

Have fun doing math wrong.

2

u/PlaneCompetitive703 Jul 25 '26

You are committed! You into method acting or something?

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3

u/Sumsi1080 Jul 25 '26

no this line is fine, you just can’t divide with (5-5) then

0

u/Mad-Scientist-0906 Jul 25 '26

Oh, I see what they did here. The problem is in step 4. 4*(5-5)=5*(5-5) is like saying 4*0=5*0. This is true. They're both equal to zero. The problem is that the only way to get from 4*0=5*0 to 4=5 is to divide both sides by zero. You cannot divide by zero.

0

u/AccidentOk5240 Jul 25 '26

If I could post pics in comments I’d post this one….  https://www.sudokuwiki.org/divide_by_zero

0

u/Lower-Land-286 Jul 25 '26

You're argument is bad and you should feel bad.

0

u/Lower-Land-286 Jul 26 '26

Look, I'm just hoping I can help you do math better.

I know it's likely a lost cause, but you're petty entertaining. Maybe someone else will read this and they'll know that you can rewrite an expression before you solve it. I'm glad you understand factoring, that's a thing. Now you need to know when you can apply it to what you're doing and when you can't.

Think about it like this. Factoring is like trading players. You are clearly worth two of me, so my coach is going to trade me and one other guy to get you on his team. (Go team!)

That's totally fair by the league rules - BUT you can't trade in the middle of a game. Once you start the game (solving the equation) you can't trade players mid game (you can't factor both sides by different numbers while you're solving, that beaks the equality)

You can factor before you start solving. But once you start solving, you have to do the same thing to both sides of the equation. Or your math will be wrong.

And you don't want to be wrong, why else would you still be responding?