# Why 0 ÷ 0 = 1

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-0-0-1/158219>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [February 28, 2003, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-0-0-1/158219 "2003-02-28T20:14:42Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 4

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**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\
**Post date:** [March 6, 2003, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-0-0-1/158219/61 "2003-03-06T18:07:40Z")

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**Trigonal** : That would be how the typical calc text would represent it on a graph, yes. But what of it?

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**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\
**Post date:** [March 7, 2003, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-0-0-1/158219/62 "2003-03-07T01:59:48Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by ultrafilter \*  
> You don’t need l’Hopital’s rule for this, because it’s equal to 1 whenever x is non-zero. That means the limit is 1, cause the function is constant as you approach zero.

Yup…although it is comforting to note that l’Hopital’s rule of differentiating the numerator and denominator of the expression gives 1/1 and thus confirms what we already know about the limit of x/x as x-\>0.

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