AoPS Academy
, 
,
, 
, why 
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.. It is usually regarded that 
, not because this works numerically but because it is convenient to define it this way. You will see the convenience of defining other undefined things later on in this post.? The issue here is that 
isn't even rigorously defined in this expression. What exactly do we mean by ? Unless the example in question is put in context in a formal manner, then we say that is meaningless.? Suppose that 
. Then we would have 
, absurd. A more rigorous treatment of the idea is that 
does not exist in the first place, although you will see why in a calculus course. So the point is that is undefined.
? An article from brilliant has a good explanation. Alternatively, you can just use a geometric series. Notice that
? Usually this is considered to be an indeterminate form, but I would also wager that this is also undefined.
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 is an indeterminate form.
, 
or , obtained by applying the algebraic limit theorem (a theorem in analysis, look this up for details) in the process of attempting to determine a limit, which fails to restrict that limit to one specific value or infinity, and thus does not determine the limit being calculated. This is why it is called indeterminate. Some examples of indeterminate forms are![\[0/0, \infty/\infty, \infty-\infty, \infty \times 0\]](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 
. On the other hand, 
is undefined because dividing by is not defined in arithmetic by definition. In other words, something is undefined when it is not defined in some mathematical context. is considered both indeterminate and undefined (but in the context of a limit then it is considered in indeterminate form). Additionally, this notion of something being undefined also means that we can define it in some way. To rephrase, this means that technically, we can make something that is undefined to something that is defined as long as we define it. I'll show you what I mean.![\[\overline{\mathbb{R}}=\mathbb{R}\cup \{-\infty,+\infty\}.\]](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 it is perfectly OK to say that,![\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 is undefined still! Is there a place where it isn't? Kind of. To do this, we can extend the complex numbers! More formally, we can define this extension as![\[\mathbb{C}^*=\mathbb{C}\cup\{\tilde{\infty}\}\]](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 is allowed here! In fact, we have![\[\frac{z}{0}=\tilde{\infty},\frac{z}{\tilde{\infty}}=0.\]](http://latex.artofproblemsolving.com/1/6/0/160cb939707708ff4e0930724df2928af11d7fd1.png)
where 
and are left undefined. We also have
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 , by defining them as![\[{\widehat {\mathbb {R} }}=\mathbb {R} \cup \{\infty \}.\]](http://latex.artofproblemsolving.com/c/0/4/c044ff37849acad3b8b280b9753539225a1276ca.png)
They behave in a similar way to the Riemann Sphere, with division by also being allowed with the same indeterminate forms (in addition to some other ones).
and 
. Prove that
Let 
be reals such that 
. Prove that
spheres centered at 
, with radius of and , which is remarked as 
and 
, respectively. Given 
points 
outside of (not including the surface of ).
as the number of sets 
such that the midpoint of 
lies entirely inside of .
+1 w
where the 
are positive integers such that each 
and none of two consecutive terms when summed are equal to 
.
[hide=P#]a1b2c3[/hide] [hide=S#]a1b2c3[/hide]
be a cyclic quadrilateral. Let 
be the midpoint of the arc 
of its circumcircle which does not contain 
or 
. Let the lines 
and 
meet at 
and the lines 
and 
meet at 
. Prove that the lines 
and are parallel.
be a cyclic quadrilateral. Let be the midpoint of the arc of its circumcircle which does not contain or . Let the lines and meet at and the lines and meet at . Prove that the lines and are parallel.
being the midpoint implies that 
. We can see now that 
is cyclic and obviously is cylic. The result follows from Reim's. 
is the midpoint of arc , we have![\[\angle QCP = \angle FCA = \angle FDB = \angle QDP\]](http://latex.artofproblemsolving.com/2/e/b/2eb556f6066a7e8c696dfc30d40c9bfbbc8a26c7.png)
is cyclic. Reim's Theorem finishes. 
![[asy]
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[/asy]](http://latex.artofproblemsolving.com/d/1/e/d1e7c352bc2a4433d2d629421bff64380f2c2572.png)
and animate on the circumcircle. Then is fixed, and and move as a function of 
and 
are projective, so 
is a projective map. Now let 
be the point on 
such that 
By projecting through 
we know 
is also projective. It suffices to check these maps coincide for three positions of
then 
and 
coincide.
we have 
so 
is the point such that 
we have 
and 
inscribe arcs of equal angles, 
, so 
is cyclic. Then 
, as desired.
?
:o
so 
and since 
is just 
therefore 
so 
and 
intersect at the point 
.
?
,
.
are chosen from 0 to 1. What is the probability that their positive difference is more than 
?
?
families, there are 
children respectively. If a random child from any of the families is chosen, what is the probability that the child has 
,
people, exactly 
such that 
.
lies on diagonal 
.
.
.
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equals half of arc 
equals half of arc 
is cyclic, so we have![\[\angle QPE=\angle QPC=\angle QDC=\angle BDC=\angle BAE\]](http://latex.artofproblemsolving.com/1/d/c/1dc74481dddc5f7a1bce8a6beed2ca2a8894d6d2.png)
so 
,
So 
cyclic
![\[\angle PCQ=\angle ACF=\angle BCF=\angle FDB=\angle PDQ,\]](http://latex.artofproblemsolving.com/9/9/c/99c9035f6ea032778a287f5a08af60ab6f3b99ba.png)
so quadrilateral ![\[\angle QPC=\angle QDC=\angle BDC=\angle BAC\]](http://latex.artofproblemsolving.com/d/4/0/d40db76b6edff110bf1256af265e2bbc27606160.png)
and we win. 
cyclic. So then 
so 
.
is cyclic by Reim's.
and we are done.
so 
so 
so 
QED
and 
the first congruence coming from 
which shows the quadrilateral 
that 
which implies the parallel.