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- Path: sparky!uunet!olivea!inews.Intel.COM!td2cad!sshankar
- From: sshankar@td2cad.intel.com (Sadasivan Shankar)
- Newsgroups: sci.math.num-analysis
- Subject: Re: infinity?
- Message-ID: <C19n28.A43@inews.Intel.COM>
- Date: 22 Jan 93 17:25:18 GMT
- References: <1jnqpiINNj15@lynx.unm.edu>
- Sender: news@inews.Intel.COM (USENET News System)
- Reply-To: sshankar@td2cad.intel.com (Sadasivan Shankar)
- Distribution: usa
- Organization: Intel Corporation, Santa Clara, CA USA
- Lines: 22
- Nntp-Posting-Host: tcadrs
-
- Dividing by zero is not defined. It is not pssible to compare dividing by a real number and
- divind by zero. If you look at the definition of functional spaces, for instance, multiplying
- by zero itself is defined as a separate operation. Although tan (90) may not be defined
- in this sense, cotangen (90) = 0. Tangent-type functions (including) Cotangent are functions
- with infinite discontinuties. One way to see why tan (90) can't really be said to be
- infinity is can be seen from the following example.
-
- Tan (0) = 0
- Tan (pi/4) = 1.
- Tan (90)_ = ?
- Tan (90 + theta) = - cotangent (theta)
-
- Thus to the right of pi/2 (in the period 0 - 2*pi), the tangent function starts from - (negative) Large
- values. Thus at pi/2, it is not exactly defined, since it could be +inf (approaching it from
- left) or -inf (approaching it from right). Hope that this answers some of your questions.
-
- S.Shankar
- Tech CAD
- INTEL
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