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).
such that 
is a perfect square.
as the set of all numbers of the form 
for some nonnegative 
and 
. Find (with proof) all pairs 
such that 
and 
.
, Elbek writes 
. Prove that there will be two numbers on the board after some minutes, such that one is divisible by the other.
- Greatest common divisor of numbers 
and 
different icons.
such that if and are distinct rational numbers satisfying 
or 
, then 
? Justify your answer.
and the leaf to the right with . It seems to work.
for some 
where 
for all 
. From now on this will be denoted as ![$ [a_0; a_1, a_2, \dots, a_m] $](http://latex.artofproblemsolving.com/1/c/4/1c47e13850fd92c24cf30707900dc53e12c32418.png)
.
, let 
. Then let 
and for all 
let 
. I claim that this 
satisfies the desired properties. To prove this, consider two rational numbers 
.
If 
then by definition 
as desired.
If 
and 
then by definition as desired since 
.
If and 
then to prove that it suffices to show that 
. Let ![$ -x = [a_0; a_1, a_2, \dots, a_m] $](http://latex.artofproblemsolving.com/1/0/e/10e2dcb8e4ad502ecb43d7e1c2744f3995658d81.png)
. Then ![$ y = [a_0 + 1; a_1, a_2, \dots, a_m] $](http://latex.artofproblemsolving.com/2/c/e/2ce601c354188bdad5e03d9833f5a0efd26eb275.png)
and so 
as desired.
If and 
we can let ![$ y = [0; 1, a_2, \dots, a_m] $](http://latex.artofproblemsolving.com/e/6/b/e6b1ac208f52b35a47ba274b63b6aede8c05b3b5.png)
so that ![$ x = [0; a_2 + 1, a_3, \dots, a_m] $](http://latex.artofproblemsolving.com/5/c/a/5ca981e9723d9f4c0ee0a619a2f05b17f18fee09.png)
so 
and 
which implies that as desired.
If 
, we can assume WLOG that 
. Then letting ![$ x = [0; a_1, a_2, \dots, a_m] $](http://latex.artofproblemsolving.com/f/a/4/fa41f1dfed52008255c6fe47ad8f150591dc820c.png)
we have that ![$ y = [a_1; a_2, a_3, \dots, a_m] $](http://latex.artofproblemsolving.com/1/6/6/166a8243036f6a8f2362c13f93282945d869aff5.png)
so 
and 
which implies that as desired.
. Anyway, here's my solution: For two integers 
, let 
denote the number of steps taken in the Euclidean Algorithm to find 
. In other words, if we let 
and write the system of equations 
then 
where 
. Then we claim that the following function works-
for 
and 
for 
for 
with , 
when 
. For 
and 
, this easily follows from the definition, so we can ignore these cases. WLOG assume 
and suppose 
for some 
with 
. Then from property 3 of our function, we have 
and 
. Since 
so it suffices to show that 
for 
.
for , and first suppose 
. We have 
But, as 
, so the first step of our Euclidean Algorithm while finding 
will be 
. So 
. Also, using 
, we get 
. Thus, we have 
Thus, for 
we have . Finally, if 
then 
and 
. Since 
, then the previous result gives 
. Combined with the above equalities, we get . Thus, the result is true for all 
.
for 
. For 
, the result is true by definition. And for 
, by the above result, we have 
which directly gives the desired property.
when 
. Since 
(proved before), so it suffices to show the result for positive . Also, WLOG we can take 
, and write with 
and 
. Then 
But, while finding 
we simply start from the second step in the Euclidean Algorithm to find . So we have 
. This gives us 
Thus, we have as desired. 
is that 
, which we can manually enforce at the end. Thus, we assume that the inputs to 
are nonzero rationals.
where 
and 
. We set ![\[s(x) = \begin{cases}1 &\text{if } (a^{-1}\mod b)\le b/2 \\ -1 &\text{if } (a^{-1}\mod b)>b/2.\end{cases}\]](http://latex.artofproblemsolving.com/2/7/e/27e64eb277458c6bc8cbe17ca29ebb109bc722d2.png)
From this definition, it is clear that 
and 
, so it suffices to show that 
. Since we know is odd, it suffices in fact to show for .
are relatively prime positive integers, then ![\[a\cdot(a^{-1}\mod b) + b\cdot(b^{-1}\mod a) = ab+1.\]](http://latex.artofproblemsolving.com/b/5/a/b5a225156975a80139966b83b5c971e5a88c9bbc.png)
be the left side of the above equation, we see that 
and 
, so 
since .![\[a+b\le T\le a(b-1)+b(a-1)<2ab,\]](http://latex.artofproblemsolving.com/6/c/e/6ce6d2e84ed2e9ff81a63c24ce53b9e60861da84.png)
so we must in fact have 
, as desired. 
if and only if 
, which implies that 
..
on the positive rational numbers to be the number of terms in the continued fraction of . Then let 
and . Then, clearly . If 
and 
then 
and therefore 
, so 
.
. WLOG, 
. If 
then ![$x=[0;1,a,\dots]$](http://latex.artofproblemsolving.com/d/3/e/d3ef3f221323abf5c6356691c994845c9be62918.png)
and ![$y=[0;1+a,\dots]$](http://latex.artofproblemsolving.com/3/9/7/397e02bb78e1b1f429fefe70e1cc92de4f6bd7bd.png)
where the 
is the same. If then 
so they have the same number of terms in the continued fraction, thus 
as desired.
directly.
. For any we have![\[s(x)=-s(-x)=s(x+1)\]](http://latex.artofproblemsolving.com/3/2/9/3290f550427475170362f031c558fd9666b859ce.png)
and we also have 
. Hence for any 
we have 
.
(starting from the smallest), we now choose 
for 
starting from and relatively prime to 
according to the following rules:
then 
.
then 
. and the conditions hold. Importantly our selection of outputs satisfies 
as well. (The only restriction on is which clearly holds.)
then WLOG with . From the first rule in the previous section we are fine.
cannot hold. If then write 
and 
. Then![\[s(x)=-s(1/x)=-s(1/x-1)=-s(b/a)\]](http://latex.artofproblemsolving.com/1/c/a/1caf3a4fbffbd73479bcd305c2ea6fb18a4daadf.png)
![\[s(y)=-s(1/y)=-s(1/y-1)=-s(a/b)\]](http://latex.artofproblemsolving.com/3/c/6/3c68f657f66c8a332250c67b4a232a5945f615a8.png)
thus . for positive .
and are distinct, negative and satisfy we are okay: 
. and are distinct and satisfy we are okay by definition. and WLOG is negative while is positive, then![\[s(y)=s(y-1)=-s(1-y)=-s(x)\]](http://latex.artofproblemsolving.com/6/8/b/68be493bd6889d204c9d6942ed7daac1e44801c2.png)
and we are okay.
for coprime nonzero inputs as follows: let 
for all 
. Then we define recursively![\[
f(a+b,b) = f(a,a+b) = f(a,b).
\]](http://latex.artofproblemsolving.com/8/c/e/8ceba577222d7c91c373379932ec1491f1b7773d.png)
This is well defined as 
is defined on input by Euclidean algorithm, and 
is defined uniquely by whichever of 
is smaller.
follows since 
recursively with the Euclidean algorithm. Furthermore, for 
, 
. to negative coprime inputs by defining 
. By and by the definition, it follows that for 
![\[
f(a, b) = f(a+b, b), f(b, a) = f(b, a+b)
\]](http://latex.artofproblemsolving.com/4/d/9/4d926a668585ac7af2668c27070453b5c09e9fbc.png)
holds for all 
. We finally define 
for coprime . Then 
holds over the extension for the same reasons, 
holds by definition, and 
holds since![\[
f(b-a,b) = f(-a,b) = -f(a,b)
\]](http://latex.artofproblemsolving.com/d/1/3/d1370636d2818f96924dd00e3dd6a4fa66ebfda5.png)
so we are done.
, such that for all 
:![\[ f(x+f(y))=\dfrac{f(x)}{1+f(xy)}\]](http://latex.artofproblemsolving.com/1/4/1/1418fad9fd00b31c38bfbc5657e2a322d66ef450.png)
.
from 
.
is a number of subfractions in the continuous fraction representing 
if we use 
contradiction.
and ![$x=[a_0;a_1,\ldots,a_m]$](http://latex.artofproblemsolving.com/5/6/e/56ed080618e6b06c10a5648cf6102fbcd6fea56c.png)
.
and 
.
,
,
,
and 
,
,
.
to be the minimum repeated applications of 
until an integer is obtained, and 
if ![\[\{s(0) = -1,\ s(x) = (-1)^{g(x)}|\ x > 0,\ s(x) = (-1)^{g(-x) + 1}|\ x < 0\}\ \forall\ x\ \in\ \mathbb{Q}\]](http://latex.artofproblemsolving.com/7/6/3/7639d6b32b78dd339446b8411afa6547cabb97b9.png)
.
,
,
,
.
,
,
,
as well. Finally, we will show that for any 
.
,
is equal to 
,
,
![$[0, 1]$](http://latex.artofproblemsolving.com/a/b/1/ab178d831a786b92cb4c9ddc2d33578223036f98.png)
.
,
.
,
,
,
,
and the other is greater than 
Therefore, we can express 
.
.
.
,
,
,