# Have we 'discovered' how to divide by zero?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-discovered-how-to-divide-by-zero/418324>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [September 7, 2007, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-discovered-how-to-divide-by-zero/418324 "2007-09-07T01:23:25Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 4

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**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\
**Post date:** [September 8, 2007, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-discovered-how-to-divide-by-zero/418324/61 "2007-09-08T01:57:57Z")

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Yeah, it’s nifty about math that you can come up with the major ideas independently on your own.

I mentioned above that the exponential function can’t be smoothly extended to the point at infinity in the Riemann sphere. I should have also made it clear that it can’t be smoothly extended to the unsigned infinity in the real projective line either (to make it continuous, we would need e^(-infinity) = 0 but also e^infinity = infinity). C’est la vie.

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