,
,
,
,
or even expressions of those terms combined as if that would make them defined. I have made this post to answer these questions once and for all, and I politely ask everyone to link this post to threads that are talking about this issue.
,
isn't even rigorously defined in this expression. What exactly do we mean by 
.
,
does not exist in the first place, although you will see why in a calculus course. So the point is that 
?
indeterminate? In analysis (the theory behind calculus and beyond), limits involving an algebraic combination of functions in an independent variable may often be evaluated by replacing these functions by their limits. However, if the expression obtained after this substitution does not provide sufficient information to determine the original limit, then the expression is called an indeterminate form. For example, we could say that 
,
or ![\[0/0, \infty/\infty, \infty-\infty, \infty \times 0\]](http://latex.artofproblemsolving.com/2/6/0/260f97a1cf1ea8722ff97a29b83bac7bfe83e577.png)
etc etc. So what makes something undefined? In the broader scope, something being undefined refers to an expression which is not assigned an interpretation or a value. A function is said to be undefined for points outside its domain. For example, the function 
given by the mapping 
is undefined for 
.
is undefined because dividing by ![\[\overline{\mathbb{R}}=\mathbb{R}\cup \{-\infty,+\infty\}.\]](http://latex.artofproblemsolving.com/9/9/3/993c78b62ec2c84b5d77daa8e9a8cd6f70fcf904.png)
So instead of treating infinity as an idea, we define infinity (positively and negatively, mind you) as actual numbers in the reals. The advantage of doing this is for two reasons. The first is because we can turn this thing into a totally ordered set. Specifically, we can let 
for each 
which means that via this order topology each subset has an infimum and supremum and 
is therefore compact. While this is nice from an analytic standpoint, extending the reals in this way can allow for interesting arithmetic! In ![\begin{align*}
a + \infty = \infty + a & = \infty, & a & \neq -\infty \\
a - \infty = -\infty + a & = -\infty, & a & \neq \infty \\
a \cdot (\pm\infty) = \pm\infty \cdot a & = \pm\infty, & a & \in (0, +\infty] \\
a \cdot (\pm\infty) = \pm\infty \cdot a & = \mp\infty, & a & \in [-\infty, 0) \\
\frac{a}{\pm\infty} & = 0, & a & \in \mathbb{R} \\
\frac{\pm\infty}{a} & = \pm\infty, & a & \in (0, +\infty) \\
\frac{\pm\infty}{a} & = \mp\infty, & a & \in (-\infty, 0).
\end{align*}](http://latex.artofproblemsolving.com/6/d/8/6d8fc1eca5c791d430a7168cd3b37a02104fa318.png)
So addition, multiplication, and division are all defined nicely. However, notice that we have some indeterminate forms here which are also undefined,![\[\infty-\infty,\frac{\pm\infty}{\pm\infty},\frac{\pm\infty}{0},0\cdot \pm\infty.\]](http://latex.artofproblemsolving.com/a/0/b/a0b67076efcc014c78b2023be1151c84b57c1503.png)
So while we define certain things, we also left others undefined/indeterminate in the process! However, in the context of measure theory it is common to define 
as greenturtle3141 noted below. I encourage to reread what he wrote, it's great stuff! As you may notice, though, dividing by ![\[\mathbb{C}^*=\mathbb{C}\cup\{\tilde{\infty}\}\]](http://latex.artofproblemsolving.com/8/4/e/84ed3d6ab237df970333b87beaef5311caa46185.png)
which we call the Riemann Sphere (it actually forms a sphere, pretty cool right?). As a note, 
means complex infinity, since we are in the complex plane now. Here's the catch: division by ![\[\frac{z}{0}=\tilde{\infty},\frac{z}{\tilde{\infty}}=0.\]](http://latex.artofproblemsolving.com/1/6/0/160cb939707708ff4e0930724df2928af11d7fd1.png)
where 
and 
Furthermore, we actually have some nice properties with multiplication that we didn't have before. In 
it holds that![\[\tilde{\infty}\times \tilde{\infty}=\tilde{\infty}\]](http://latex.artofproblemsolving.com/8/e/0/8e035b4841d20c5ad671c46355cc667ca01e533b.png)
but 
and 
are left as undefined (unless there is an explicit need to change that somehow). One could define the projectively extended reals as we did with ![\[{\widehat {\mathbb {R} }}=\mathbb {R} \cup \{\infty \}.\]](http://latex.artofproblemsolving.com/c/0/4/c044ff37849acad3b8b280b9753539225a1276ca.png)
They behave in a similar way to the Riemann Sphere, with division by 
,
,
,![\[ \frac {1}{a^3 + b^3 + abc} + \frac {1}{b^3 + c^3 + abc} + \frac {1}{c^3 + a^3 + abc} \leq \frac {1}{abc}
\]](http://latex.artofproblemsolving.com/f/a/9/fa964e29de91f0e2f3cb32e335a52d4521bc38fd.png)
.![\[ \frac {1}{a^{3}\left(b + c\right)} + \frac {1}{b^{3}\left(c + a\right)} + \frac {1}{c^{3}\left(a + b\right)}\geq \frac {3}{2}.
\]](http://latex.artofproblemsolving.com/b/2/9/b295b0b2a765e41a639657e13b724c60323fa208.png)
.
min
be a triangle. Let 
be the feet of the altitudes from 
respectively. Let 
be the projections of 
.
.
MathJuice bottles and Bob starts with 
MathJuice bottles. An unfair coin is then flipped, with probability 
of landing heads. If the coin lands heads, Alice gives Bob a bottle; otherwise, Bob gives Alice a bottle. This process repeats until someone runs out of bottles.
rest on a plane. A sphere with radius 
is tangent to all of them, but does not intersect nor lie on the plane. A sphere with radius 
lies on the plane, and is tangent to all three spheres with radius 
Compute the shortest distance between the sphere with radius 
Y by ItsBesi, lian_the_noob12
Given is a square board with dimensions 
, in which each unit cell is colored blue or red. There are exactly 
rows in which the majority of cells are blue, and exactly columns in which the majority of cells are red.
What is the maximal possible side length of the largest monochromatic square?
, in which each unit cell is colored blue or red. There are exactly 
rows in which the majority of cells are blue, and exactly columns in which the majority of cells are red.What is the maximal possible side length of the largest monochromatic square?
rows (columns) with majority blue (red), contradiction.
in red if and only if either 
and 
OR 
OR 
.
is 
be the length of the largest monochromatic square.
columns that the majority of cells are red but this is a contradiction by our condition . 
works:
There is no way that 
is Absurd
red cells (id est, the majority of the cells are red), and define blue-dominated similarly. Note that each row and column is either red-dominated or blue-dominated since each row and column has an odd number 
of cells.
.
.
,
blue-dominated rows, and exactly 
is the column number and 
is the row number. This is formally defined recursively by the following:
is the bottom-left-most cell in the board
then the cell 
is the cell directly above the cell 
and 
is the cell directly to the right of the cell 
and one of the following mutually exclusive conditions are met:
and 
:
square in the bottom-right of the board, at coordinates 
,
(as well as another blue 
red 
that follow condition 
blue cells at 
,
,
square.
rows, contradiction.
where 
.
rows where the majority of the cells are blue, and exactly 
The below configuration works for any ![[asy]
fill((0,0)--(0,7)--(7,7)--(7,0)--cycle, blue);
fill((0,0)--(1,0)--(1,7)--(0,7)--cycle, red);
fill((4,0)--(7,0)--(7,3)--(4,3)--cycle, red);
fill((4,3)--(5,3)--(5,4)--(4,4)--cycle, red);
fill((5,4)--(6,4)--(6,5)--(5,5)--cycle, red);
fill((6,5)--(7,5)--(7,6)--(6,6)--cycle, red);
add(grid(7,7));
draw((4,0)--(7,0)--(7,3)--(4,3)--cycle, green);
[/asy]](http://latex.artofproblemsolving.com/b/6/8/b68a3fdc018e07d287d28e02b692fc9071ff18c7.png)
so there can be a maximum of 
so the answer is 
.
